Also 8–9 kit-kat. [f. Kit (= Christopher) Cat or Catling, the keeper of the pie-house in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar, where the club originally met.]
1. attrib. with Club: A club of Whig politicians and men of letters founded in the reign of James II.
1705. Hearne, Collect., 6 Dec. (O. H. S.), I. 116. The Kit Cat Club came to have it’s Name from one Christopher Catling. [Note, a Pudding Pye man.]
1710. Acc. Last Distemper Tom Whigg, I. 31. New Schemes in your Kit-Cat Clubs, Calf’s-Head Clubs, Junto’s, and other infernal Cabals of this kind.
1821. (title) Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons composing the Kit-Cat Club.
1829. Lytton, Devereux, II. vi. That evening we were engaged at the Kit-Cat Club.
b. absol. in same sense.
1704. Faction Displ., 15.
| I am the Founder of your lov’d Kit-Kat, | |
| A Club that gave Direction to the State. |
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, VI. 349. The Kit Cat, and the Toasters, Did never care a Fig.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, IV. ii. Thou mayest remember each bright Churchill of the gallaxy, and all the toasts of the Kit-cat.
attrib. c. 1706. Blackmore, Poem Kit-cat Club. Hence did th’ Assembly’s Title first arise, And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat’s Pyes.
c. A member of this club.
1704. Faction Displ., 14. Tosters, Kit-Kats, Divines, Buffoons and Wits.
1722. Mary Astell, Enq. after Wit, Ded. To the most Illustrious Society of the Kit-Cats.
1883. W. H. Rideing, in Harper’s Mag., July, 181/2. The Kit-Kats were the greatest gentlemen of the day.
2. attrib. with size, portrait, etc.: A particular size of portrait, less than half-length, but including the hands.
Said to have been so called because the dining-room of the club at Barn Elms was hung with portraits of the members and was too low for half-size portraits.
1754. A. Drummond, Trav., i. 31. There is … a kit-cat size of St. Ignatius holding a crucifix.
1778. Pennant, Tours in Wales (1883), I. 15. Here is another picture … a kit-cat length of Sir Roger Mostyn.
1875. Miss Braddon, Strange World, II. i. 4. It was a kit-kat picture of a lad in undress uniform.
b. absol. in same sense.
1800. Malone, Dryden, 534, note. The canvas for a Kit-kat is thirty-six inches long, and twenty-eight wide.
1840. Polytechnic Jrnl., II. 322. The portraits … will be of the proportion of what is termed a Kit-Kat.
1883. D. C. Murray, Hearts, I. iv. 92. All the portraits in the Shire Hall are kit-cats.
c. fig.
1803. Edin. Rev., II. 427. As Virgil did with his verses, leaving some half lengths, others kit-cat.
1822. Coleridge, Lett., Convers., etc. II. 144. I destroyed the Kit-cat or bust at least of the letter I had meant to have sent you.
