Also cat-tail.
1. The tail of a cat; a fur for the neck, so called.
1550. Lever, Serm. (Arb.), 131. Bryngynge home sylkes and sables, cat-tayls, and folyshe fethers to fil the realm full of such baggage.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. lvi. 730. Yellowe ragged things compact of certayne scales, hanging vpon the tree, like smal Cattes tayles.
1731–7. Miller, Gard. Dict., Catkins … join’d together in Form of a Rope or Cat’s-tail.
2. A name given to several plants from the resemblance of parts to the tail of a cat.
a. ? The Great Mullein, Verbascum Thapsus.
c. 1450. Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.), 68. Flosmus … tapsus barbatus … angl. feltwort uel cattestayl.
1483. Cath. Angl., 55. A Cattyle [v.r. Catalle], lanugo, herba est.
b. The Reed-Mace, Typha latifolia; from the long cylindrical furry spikes that form its fruit.
1548. Turner, Names of Herbes, 79. It is called in english cattes tayle or reed-mace.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, IV. liii. 512. Typha palustris, Reede Mace, Cattes tayle, or Water torche. Ibid., 513. This plant yeeldeth his cattes tayles.
1597. Gerard, Herball (1633), 46 (L.).
1622. Drayton, Poly-olb., II. xx. 14. Cat-tayles … which from the Sedge doth grow.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxviii. 430. The greater, or broad-leaved Cat’s-tail, otherwise called Reed-Mace.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, II. 109. The tall cat’s tails, and all the flags, stand absolutely motionless.
c. The Horse-tail, Equisetum.
1552. Huloet, Cattes tayle, herbe, which some cal horse taile, cauda equina, equisetum.
1649. Blithe, Eng. Improv. Impr. (1652), 26. So bad and boggy it was that … it bore nothing but Cattayles.
1880. Jefferies, Gt. Estate, 25. She pulled the ‘cat’s-tails,’ as she learned to call the horse-tails, to see the stem part at the joints.
† d. Viper’s Bugloss, Echium vulgare. e. Monk’s-hood, Aconitum Napellus. f. Horse-tail Rush, Eriophorum vaginatum. g. = Cat’s-tail grass (see 3).
1538. Turner, Libellus, Cattes tayle, cirsion. Ibid. (1551), Herbal, I. (1568), 29. Thys herbe is called in some places of Englande cattys tayles, in other places wylde buglose.
1789. D. Davidson, Seasons, 10 (Jam.).
| The cat-tails whiten through the verdant bog.— | |
| All-vivifying Nature does her work. |
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, II. 229. Slopes all flourishing with cat’s-tail and poppy.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville, III. 68.
1861. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., VI. 63. Alpine Cat’s-tail.
3. Cat’s-tail grass: the name of the genus Phleum; esp. P. pratense, one of the earliest and most productive of British grasses, Timothy Grass.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, I. viii. 11. Great Cats-taile Grasse hath very small roots.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xiii. 133. [Of] Cat’s-tail grass … the spike … seems rough.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, 242. Among the marshes I found the alpine catstail grass.
4. A catkin.
[Cf. 1578 in 1.]
1611. Cotgr., Minons, Cat-tailes, or Catkins: the long aglet-like buds of nut-trees.
1656. Dugard, Gate Lat. Unl., § 119. In the Hazel the Cats-tail [breaketh out] before the budding.
1721. Bailey, Cats Tail, a Substance, growing upon Nut-trees, Pines, &c.
1875. Parish, Sussex Dial., Cats Tails, the male blossom of hazel or willow.
5. Naut. The inner end of the CAT-HEAD (sense 1).
