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.’ Who on my viands waxes
fat?—Who keeps a most voracious cat!—Who often listens on my mat?
My Landlady.
Flying cat, subs. (old).—An owl.
1690. B. E., Dictionary 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, Maids of More-cl. (1880), 70. Ile baste their bellies
and their lippes till we haue ierk’t the cat with our three
whippes. [m.]
1630. J. Taylor (‘Water P.’), Brood Cormor, wks. III., p. 5, col.
1. You may not say hee’s drunke.... For though he be as drunke as
any rat He hath but catcht a fox, or whipt the cat.
1830. Marryat, Kings 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. B. Jonson, Barthol. Fair, I., iv. [n.]. I’ll be drawn with a
good gib cat through the great pond at home. [m.]
1690. B. E., Dictionary Canting Crew. Catting: drawing a Fellow
through a Pond with a cat.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. 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 pack-thread, 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
‘schoolmasters’—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 Pap. (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. Sat. Rev., 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. ‘Pol. Slang,’ in Cornhill Mag., 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. Lond. Mag., XXIX., p.224. We could have wished that the
author ... had not let the cat out of the bag. [m.]
1782. Wolcot (‘P. 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. Mrs. 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, ‘Marriage of Witt and Wisdome.’ Sc. 3. Now am I
true araid like a phesitien; I am as very a turncote as the
wethercoke of Poles; For now I will calle my name Due Disporte. So,
so, finely I can turne the catt in the pane.
1593. 4 Lett. Conf., in wks. (Grosart) II., 286. If it bee a home
booke at his first conception, let it be a home 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.’ ‘When George in pudding time
came in, And moderate men looked big, sir, He turned a cat-in-pan
once more, And so became a Whig, sir.’
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.
Catamaran, subs. (colloquial).—A vixenish old woman; also a
cross-grained person of either sex. [Cf., Catamount. Probably
associated with the colloquial use of cat, a quarrelsome, vicious
woman]. For synonyms, see Geezer.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple, ch. vi. The cursed drunken old
catamaran, cried he, I’ll go and cut her down by the head.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, ch. lxxv. ‘What a woman that Mrs.
Mackenzie is!’ cries F. B. ‘What an infernal tartar and catamaran!’
1861. Macmillan’s Magazine, June, p. 113. She was such an obstinate
old catamaran.
Catamount, Catamountain, or Cat O’Mountain, subs. (American).—A shrew.
[Cf., Catamaran and Beaumont and Fletcher’s use of the word for a wild
man from the mountains, itself a transferred sense of catamount = a
leopard or panther.]
1616. Fletcher, Cust. of Country, I., i. The rude claws of such a
cat o’ mountain!
1835. Haliburton, Clockmaker, 1 S., ch., xii. She was a dreadful
cross-grained woman, a real catamount, as savage as a she-bear that
has cubs.
Cat and Mouse, subs., phr. (rhyming slang).—A house.
Catastrophe, subs. (old).—The tail or latter end. Cf., the Falstaffism
‘I’ll tickle your catastrophe.’
Catawampous, Catawamptiously, adj. and adv. (popular).—With avidity;
fiercely; eagerly; or violently destructive. See Catawampus.
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch., xxi., 216. There air some
catawampous chawers in the small way too, as graze upon a human
pretty strong.
1853. Lytton, My Novel, bk. X., ch. xx. If a man like me ... is to
be catawampously champed up by a mercenary selfish cormorant of a
capitalist.
18(?). F. Burnand, The White Cat. Don’t hurt me; spare a poor unhappy
pup, Or I’ll be catawampously chawed up.
Catawampus, subs.—Vermin, especially those that sting and bite.
[Apparently formed from Catawampous (q.v.).]
1880. Mortimer Collins, Thoughts in My Garden, vol. I., p. 244.
Look at their [spiders’] value in destroying wasps and
blue-bottles, gnats, midges, and all manner of catawampuses, as the
ladies call them.
Catch, subs. (colloquial).—A man or woman matrimonially desirable;
formerly in a canting sense, a prize or booty [see quot. 1877]. A woman
who is ‘no great catch’ is in French argot termed une grognotte.
1593. Shakspeare, Taming of the Shrew, Act ii., Sc. 1, 333. Bap.
The gain I seek is—quiet in the match. Gre. No doubt but he hath
got a quiet catch.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.) Catch (s.) ... also a cant word
for a prize, booty, etc.
1842. Comic Almanack, p. 333. Angelina Ampletin was one of the
prettiest girls in Pimlico, and if there was any truth in rumour,
very far from one of the worst catches.
1877. Five Years’ Penal Servitude, ch. iii., p. 244. Well, as it
was her catch, I thought as I’d consult along of her whether we
should take the £200.
Catch or Cut a Crab, verbal phr. (common).—There are various ways of
catching a crab, as for example, (1) to turn the blade of the oar or
‘feather’ under water at the end of the stroke, and thus be unable to
recover; (2) to lose control of the oar at the middle of the stroke by
‘digging’ too deeply; or (3) to miss the water altogether. An English
variant is to ‘capture a cancer,’ an American form being ‘to catch a
lobster.’—See Lobster.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple [ed. 1846], ch viii., p. 206, s.v.
1844. Puck, p. 134. Now, Johnson, thou wilt surely rue! Didst ever
pull before? (Brown had been up to fish at Kew. And caught—of
crabs—a store.)
1849. John Smith (J. D. Lewis) Hark, the gun has gone thrice, and
now off in a trice, With the Johnians we’re soon on a level. When
Hicks, who’s no dab, with his oar cuts a crab, And our coxswain he
swears like the Devil.
1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 144. Awful muff! Can’t pull
two strokes without catching as many crabs; he’d upset the veriest
tub on the river.
1872. Daily News, 10 Sept. ‘London Rowing Club Regatta.’ The
excitement and fun engendered by the numerous scrimmages resulted
in ‘fouls’ and crabs of most portentous magnitude.
Catch a Tartar, verbal phr. (popular).—To unexpectedly meet with one’s
superior; to fall into one’s own trap; having a design upon another, to
be caught oneself. [Explanation may be found, perhaps, in the horror
born of the atrocities of the Tartar hordes who devastated Eastern
Europe in the reign of St. Louis of France. Cf., Tartar, a person of
irritable temper.] An American variant is to catch on a snag (q.v.).
1682. Dryden, Prol. to King and Queen, in wks., p. 456 (Globe).
When men will needlessly their freedom barter for lawless power,
sometimes they catch a tarter.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. xxx. Who, looking at me with a
contemptuous sneer, exclaimed, Ah, ah! have you caught a tarter?
1778. Fanny Burney, Diary, 23 Aug. ‘Ah,’ he (Johnson) added, ‘they
will little think what a tarter you carry to them.’
1857. O. W. Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. v. When
the Danish pirates made descents upon the English coast, they
caught a few tartars occasionally, in the shape of Saxons.
c. 1880. Broadside Ballad, ‘Unhappy Because it Can’t Last.’ They
say two heads are better than one, so I took a wife and caught a
tartar, and found two of a trade could never agree, and proved the
proverb that marry in haste repent at leisure.
Catch-’em-Alive, or Alivo, subs. phr. (common).—1. A fly-paper. [In
allusion to the sticky substance smeared over the paper which,
attracting the flies, literally ‘catches them alive.’]
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, vol. III., p. 38.
They used to ... call ’em Egyptian flypapers, but now they use
merely the word ‘flypapers,’ or ‘fly-destroyers,’ or
‘fly-catchers,’ or ‘catch ’em alive, oh’s.’
1857. Dickens, Dorrit, wks. I., ch. xvi., 122. And such coats of
varnish that every holy personage served for a fly trap, and became
what is now called in the vulgar tongue a catch-em-alive, O.
1890. Globe, 16 April, p. 1, col. 3. Typhoid microbes take as
kindly to sluggish waters as flies do to catch-em-alive-oh’s.