Dent du Chat, Mountain summit in Savoie, France

Dent du Chat is a 1,390-metre limestone summit of the Mont du Chat in Savoie, on the border of Bourdeau and Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu. It has two rocky tops: a lower, blocky front summit and a higher, pointed summit behind it, with trees and shrubs running down the ridge between them. The upper faces are bare pale grey rock with dark streaks.

The Dent du Chat is made of reef limestone from the Kimmeridgian stage. Its isolated form results from heavy erosion of the western flank of the Mont du Chat, which caused that side to collapse; the many scree fields at the western base of the peak and of the anticline record this. The name Mont du Chat is attested from 1209, in a charter reading "A supercilio montis Catti usque ad Rodanum".

The name comes from the mont du Chat, recorded as Mons Catti in 1232 and A supercilio montis Catti in a 1209 charter. Adolphe Gros linked it to a personal name, Catus or Cattus, while Roger Brunet suggested the Alpine term cha, a bare ridge. A local legend instead tells of a giant cat that terrorised travellers crossing the col until King Arthur's companions Bérius and Mélianus killed it with arrows, baiting it with a lamb; only one of its canines stayed on the summit.

Three marked routes lead to the summit. From the TDF relay car park on the Mont du Chat road, the crest takes under an hour and a half, with cables and ladders on the last metres. From the Col du Chat car park allow 2 h 30, with exposed passages; from the Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu leisure-base car park, 6 h through forest.

The summit's name comes from a legend: a fisherman who kept a miraculous kitten saw it grow into a huge cat that terrorised travellers crossing the col. Arthur's companions Bérius and Mélianus killed it with arrows, and one canine stayed on the rock as the Dent du Chat.