Cat

subs. (old).—1.  A prostitute. For synonyms, see BARRACK-HACK.

  [1401.  Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, II., 113. ‘The Reply of Friar Daw Topias.’

  1535.  LYNDESAY, Satyre, 468. Wantonnes. Hay! as one brydlit CAT, I brank.  [M.]

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew. CAT: a common Whore.

  1748.  T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). CAT (s.) … also a cant word for a lewd, whorish woman, or street-walker.

  2.  (popular).—A shortened form of CAT-O’-NINE-TAILS (q.v.).

  1788.  A. FALCONBRIDGE, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, 40. A CAT, (an instrument of correction, which consists of a handle or stem, made of a rope three inches and a half in circumference, and about eighteen inches in length, at one [end] of which are fastened nine branches, or tails, composed of log line, with three or more knots upon each branch).  [M.]

  1870.  London Figaro, 23 Dec. We are delighted to learn that Mr. Baron Bramwell, at the Warwick Assizes, on Saturday, sentenced a batch of street thieves to hard labour for eighteen months, and twenty lashes each, with an instrument called the CAT.

  1889.  Globe, 26 Oct., p. 7, col. 3. The ‘CAT.’ A companion of the prisoner was convicted last session of being concerned in the assault and robbery, and was sentenced to eighteen months’ hard labour and to receive twenty-five lashes.

  3.  (thieves’).—A lady’s muff. [Muff = female pudendum. See sense 4.]

  1857.  SNOWDEN, Magistrates Assistant, 3 ed., p. 444. To steal a muff—To free a CAT.

  4.  (popular).—The female pudendum; otherwise a PUSSY; French, le chat.

  5.  (thieves’).—A quart pot. Pint pots are called KITTENS. Stealing these pots is termed CAT AND KITTEN SNEAKING.

  1851.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, II., p. 118. The mistress of a lodging-house, who had conveniences for the melting of pewter-pots (called CATS AND KITTENS by the young thieves according to the size of the vessels). Ibid., I., p. 460. At this lodging-house CATS AND KITTENS are melted down … A quart pot is a CAT, and pints and half-pints are KITTENS.

  6.  (popular).—See TAME CAT.

  7.  (common).—A monster infesting lodging houses, and assimilating, with equal readiness, cold meat and coals, spirits and paraffin, etc., etc.

  1827.  R. B. PEAKE, Comfortable Lodgings, Act I., Sc. iii. I wonder whether the CAT ever comes in here, and knocks anything over? Sir Hippington Miff, here’s your health!—Ladies, yours! (Drinks.) Bless my soul! the cup’s empty! I’ll turn it over, and lay the fault at pussy’s door.

  1871.  Figaro, 2 July. ‘My Landlady.’

  FLYING CAT, subs. (old).—An owl.

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. Flutter. An owl is a FLYING-CAT.

  TO JERK, SHOOT, or WHIP THE CAT; or simply, TO CAT. To vomit; generally from over indulgence in drink.—See ACCOUNTS and CAST UP ACCOUNTS.

  1609.  ARMIN, The Historie of the Two Maides of More-clacke (1880), 70. Ile baste their bellies and their lippes till we haue ierk’t the cat with our three whippes.  [M.]

  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Brood Cormor, wks. III., p. 5, col. 1.

  1830.  MARRYAT, The King’s Own, ch. xxxii. I’m cursedly inclined to SHOOT THE CAT.

  TO WHIP THE CAT, otherwise TO DRAW THROUGH THE WATER WITH A CAT, phr. (old).—1.  To indulge in practical jokes. [For suggested origin, see quotation 1785.]

  1614.  JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, I., iv. [N.]. I’ll be DRAWN WITH A GOOD GIB CAT THROUGH THE GREAT POND at home.  [M.]

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew. CATTING: DRAWING a Fellow THROUGH A POND WITH A CAT.

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. CAT WHIPPING, or WHIPPING THE CAT, a trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength; by laying a wager with them, that they may be PULLED THROUGH A POND BY A CAT; the bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a packthread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.

  2.  (tailors’, etc.).—To work at private houses. In America the term is also used by carpenters and other itinerants, especially schoolmasters who ‘board round.’ At one time it was more convenient to pay in kind than in currency; and, in rural New England, a school-teacher would be ‘boarded round’ amongst his pupils’ parents as a part of his remuneration. (See Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow.) This was called WHIPPING THE CAT.

  1871.  DE VERE, Americanisms, 648. WHIPPING THE CAT: an old English phrase, used only by tailors and carpenters, has maintained its existence in New England, Pennsylvania, and a few other States, where it denotes the annual visit of a tailor to repair the clothes of a household. It is said to have originated in a very rough practical joke, which bears the same name in Hampshire, England, and of which, it is surmised, the tailor may have been the victim (J. R. Lowell). The simple tailors of former days liked thus to go from house to house in the rural districts, providing the families with clothing. The chief romance for the happy ‘Schneider’ was in the abundant and wholesome cheer of the farmer who employed him, and as his annual visits fell in the pudding and sausage season, he was usually crammed with that kind of ‘vegetables,’ as he facetiously called them, to his heart’s content. The only objection made to CATWHIPPING, was that it afforded no opportunity to ‘cabbage,’ and in former days this was a serious grievance. The introduction of large manufacturing establishments, low-priced ready-made clothing, and the advent of the sewing-machine, have now nearly made an end to this itinerant occupation. The terms CATWHIPPER and CATWHIPPING were often facetiously, and sometimes very irreverently, applied to other itinerant professions: even ‘school-masters’—there were no ‘teachers,’ much less ‘educators,’ in those benighted days—were called CATWHIPPERS, when they boarded, as was quite usual, in turns with the parents of their scholars. Itinerating preachers also were, by the initiated, included in this category.

  TO SEE HOW THE CAT WILL JUMP, phr. (common).—To watch the course of events. An American equivalent is TO SIT ON THE FENCE.—See FENCE and JUMPING CAT.

  1827.  SCOTT, in Croker Papers (1884), I., xi., 319. Had I time, I believe I would come to London merely TO SEE HOW THE CAT JUMPED.  [M.]

  1853.  BULWER-LYTTON, My Novel, IV., p. 228. ‘But I rely equally on your friendly promise.’ ‘Promise! No—I don’t promise. I must first SEE HOW THE CAT JUMPS.’

  1859.  LEVER, Davenport Dunn, III., 229. You’ll SEE with half an eye HOW THE CAT JUMPS.

  1874.  The Saturday Review, p. 139. This dismays the humble Liberal of the faint Southern type, who thinks that there are subjects as to which the heads of his party need not wait TO SEE HOW THE CAT JUMPS.

  1887.  Political Slang, in Cornhill Magazine, June, p. 626. Those who sit on the fence—men with impartial minds, who wait to see, as another pretty phrase has it, ‘HOW THE CAT WILL JUMP.’

  YOU KILL MY CAT AND I’LL KILL YOUR DOG, phr. (common).—’Ca’ me, ’ca’ thee; an exchange in the matter of ‘scratching backs’—in Fr. passez moi la casse, et je t’enverrai la senne.

  TO LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG, phr. (common).—To reveal a secret; a variant with a slightly modified sense is TO PUT ONE’S FOOT IN IT. [This and the kindred phrase ‘to buy a pig in a poke,’ are said to have had their origin in the bumpkin’s trick of substituting a cat for a young pig and bringing it to market in a bag. If the customer were wary THE CAT WAS LET OUT OF THE BAG, and there was no deal.

  1760.  London Magazine, XXIX., p. 224. We could have wished that the author … had not LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG.  [M.]

  1782.  WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Pair of Lyric Epistles To the Reader. But, to use a sublime phrase, as it would be LETTING THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG, I have fortune.

  1811.  C. K. SHARPE, in Correspondence (1888), I., 475. She has LET a wicked CAT OUT OF THE BAG to G. M. respecting his mother.

  1855.  GASKELL, North and South, ch. xliv. You needn’t look so frightened because you have LET THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG to a faithful old hermit like me. I shall never name his having been in England.

  1888.  MACDERMOTT [on the case of Crawford v. Dilke]. This noble representative of everything good in Chelsea, He LET THE CAT, the naughty cat, RIGHT OUT OF THE Gladstone BAG.

  WHO ATE or STOLE THE CAT? phr. (common).—A gentleman whose larder was frequently broken by bargees, had a cat cooked and placed as a decoy. It was taken and eaten, and became a standing jest against the pilferers.

  TO LEAD A CAT AND DOG LIFE, phr. (popular).—To quarrel night and day. Said of married (or unmarried) couples.

  TO TURN CAT IN THE PAN, phr. (old).—To ‘rat’; to reverse one’s position through self-interest; to play the turncoat. [The derivation is absolutely unknown. The one generally received—that ‘cat’ is a corruption of ‘cate’ or ‘cake’—is historically untenable.]

  c. 1559.  Old Play, ‘The Mariage of Witt and Wisdome.’ Sc. 3.

  1593.  NASHE, Four Letters Confuted, in wks. (GROSART) II., 286. If it bee a horne booke at his first conception, let it be a horne booke still, and TURNE NOT CAT IN THE PANNE.

  1625.  BACON, Essays, Of Cunning), p. 441 (ARBER). There is a Cunning, which we in England call, The TURNING OF THE CAT IN THE PAN, which is, when that which a Man says to another, he laies it, as if Another had said it to him.

  c. 1720.  Song, ‘The Vicar of Bray.’

  1816.  SCOTT, Old Mortality, ch. xxxv. ‘O, this precious Basil will TURN CAT IN PAN with any man!’ replied Claverhouse.

  TO FEEL AS THOUGH A CAT HAD KITTENED IN ONE’S MOUTH, phr. (popular).—To ‘have a mouth’ after drunkenness.

  Many other phrases and proverbial sayings might, more or less justifiably, be classed as slang in this connection; e.g., TO FIGHT LIKE KILKENNY CATS; TO GRIN LIKE A CHESHIRE CAT; NOT ROOM ENOUGH TO SWING A CAT; ABLE TO MAKE A CAT SPEAK, AND A MAN DUMB; WHO SHOT THE CAT (the last a reproach addressed to volunteers), etc.