A name for any of the feline beasts of moderate or small size that resemble the tiger in their markings or otherwise; including the Margay, Ocelot, Serval, etc. (In Zool. Society’s List applied to two species: see quot. 1896.)
1699. Dampier, Voy., II. II. 62. The Beasts of Prey that are bred in this country are Tigre-Cats, and … Lions. The Tigre-Cat is about the bigness of a Bull-Dog.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., III. vii. 255. Descending to animals … still smaller, we find the Catamountain, which is the Ocelot of Mr. Buffon, or the Tiger Cat of most of those who exhibit it as a show.
1785. G. Forster, trans. Sparrman’s Voy. Cape G. Hope (1786), II. 80. An opportunity of seeing an amorous combat between two tiger-cats.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXIV. 440/2. Tiger-Cats. Under this title may be classed all those lesser striped and spotted Asiatic, African, and American Cats which do not come under the well-understood denominations of Tigers, Leopards, and Panthers.
1871. Kingsley, At Last, xi. No jaguar or tiger-cat … would care to meddle with anything so exquisitely nasty.
1896. List Anim. Zool. Soc., 58. Felis planiceps..., Rusty Tiger Cat. Hab. Malacca…. Felis chrysothrix..., Red Tiger Cat. Hab. Gold Coast, West Africa.
1907. Daily Chron., 19 Feb., 7/4. The dusky African tiger cat, a new animal about the size of a leopard.
b. In Australasia applied to two carnivorous marsupials, Dasyurus viverrinus and D. maculatus.
1832. J. Bischoff, Van Diemen’s Land, ii. 52. The skins of the … opossum, tiger-cat, and platypus … are exported.
1852. R. C. Gunn, Papers & Proc. Roy. Soc. Van Diemen’s L., II. 11 (Morris). Dasyurus maculatus … the Spotted Martin…. ‘Tiger Cat’ of the Colonists of Tasmania,… distinguished from D. viverrinus, the ‘Native Cat’ of the Colonists, by its superior size.
c. Applied to a hybrid between the domestic cat and the wild cat (F. catus) (Cent. Dict., 1891).
