Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/65

 Cat-Match, subs. (old).—See quot.

1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue. Cat Match: when a rook or cully is engaged amongst bad bowlers.

Catoller or Catolla, subs. (old).—A noisy, prating fellow.—See quot.

1832. Pierce Egan, Book of Sports, p. 70. [Catolla is given as a foolish, betting man.]

Cat-o'-Nine-Tails or Cat, subs. (common).—A nine-lashed scourge now used for the punishment of criminals, but until 1881 the authorised means of punishment in the British army and navy. [From cat, a beast with claws, + o' + nine tails, the nine knotted lashes. History is against the view of some military authorities that the cat-o'-nine-tails was a Batavian importation of William III., and that the word 'cat' is derived from the Sclavonic kat, an executioner, or from katowae, to lash or torture. Another theory is that it was introduced at the time of the Armada (1588), when vast numbers of these 'straunge whips' were found in the captured ships of the Spaniards. A ballad of the period declares of the Spaniards that—

They made such whippes wherewith no man Would seeme to strike a dogge; So strengthened eke with brasen tagges And filde so roughe and thinne, That they would force at every lash The bloud abroad to spinne.

This view is not inconsistent with the quotations, the first of which antedates the earliest given in the N.E.D. by thirty years.] In prison parlance the cat-o'-nine-tails is known as number one or the nine-tailed bruiser (q.v.). the birch as number two (q.v.).

1665. R. Head, English Rogue, pt. I., ch. iii., p. 28 (1874). A Cat of Nine-*tails (as he called it) being so many small cords.

1702. Vanbrugh, False Friend, prologue. You dread reformers of an impious age, You awful cat-a-nine tails to the stage.

1748. Smollett, Rod. Random, ch. v. 'I'll bring him to the gangway, and anoint him with a cat-and-nine-tails.'

1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., pt. III., bk. VII., ch. iii. Rash coalised kings, such a fire have ye kindled; yourselves fireless, your fighters animated only by drill-sergeants, mess-room moralities, and the drummer's cat.

Cat-Party; also Bitch-Party, subs. (common).—A party consisting entirely of women. [From cat, a woman, + party.] Cf., Stag-party, and see Hen-Party for synonyms.

Cats, subs. (commercial).—Atlantic Seconds were formerly so-called for telegraphic purposes.

Cats and Dogs. To rain cats and dogs, sometimes extended to and pitchforks and shovels, phr. (popular).—To rain heavily. [The French cata-*doupe, a waterfall, has been suggested as the origin. Another etymon has been found in the Greek [Greek: kata doxan] in reference to the downpour being out of the common. Possibly Swift, who seems to have been the first to have used the expression, may have evolved it out of his own description of a city shower (1710).

Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow, And bear their trophies with them as they go Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud, Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.]

1788. Swift, Pol. Convers., dial. 2. I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.