kât

Kât is a historical Turkish term, often encountered in Ottoman Turkish texts, and is typically written with a circumflex as kât. In modern Turkish, the everyday word for similar meanings is kat, which primarily denotes a floor or level of a building.

In Ottoman usage, kât carried meanings connected to writing, documentation, and official acts. It appeared in legal and administrative phrases referring to deeds, records, or instruments produced by authorities. The form reflects the era’s orthography and bureaucratic vocabulary, where documents and acts were central to governance.

Today, the diacritic form kât is largely confined to historical sources, dictionaries, or scholarly works about the Ottoman period. In contemporary Turkish, the same root is seen in kat (floor/ layer) and in related terms linked to writing and record-keeping, such as katip (writer or clerk). The presence of kât in older texts signals its association with acts, documents, and the administrative process.

See also: kat (floor), kâğıt (paper), katip (writer or clerk). The root connection to writing and records underpins several Turkish terms that survive in modern language, even as the spelling and primary meanings have shifted over time.