Meowing is mostly for humans
Here is a surprising finding: adult cats rarely meow at each other. Kittens meow to their mother, but as they grow up cat-to-cat communication shifts mostly to body language and scent. The meow we hear is something cats have largely developed to talk to us — and many learn to tailor their calls to get our attention, whether it is for food, a door, or company. Over time you and your cat build a private vocabulary, where certain sounds come to mean certain things between just the two of you.
The language of the tail and body
A cat's body says at least as much as its voice. A tail held straight up, sometimes with a little curl at the tip, is a friendly greeting and an invitation to interact. A low or tucked tail can signal uncertainty, while a bottle-brush, puffed-up tail means fear or high arousal. Read the whole picture — a relaxed, loose body and forward ears say something very different from a crouched body with flattened ears and a lashing tail.
The slow blink — a cat kiss
When a cat looks at you and slowly narrows its eyes into a soft, half-closed blink, that is a genuine sign of comfort and trust, often called a cat kiss. Research from 2020 (Humphrey and colleagues) found that cats are more likely to slow-blink back at a person who slow-blinks at them, and even more likely to approach that person. So it is a signal you can return: catch your cat's eye, relax your face, and blink slowly. Many cats will answer in kind.
Listen to the whole cat
The clearest communication comes from putting the pieces together — voice, tail, ears, whiskers, and the situation. Chirps and trills are usually happy, greeting sounds, while yowls, hisses, or growls signal distress, pain, or a warning to back off. If your cat's usual signals change suddenly — new hiding, new vocalising, a shift in body language — that is worth noticing, because a change in communication can be an early sign that something is wrong.