Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 2.pdf/66

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1819 (Feb. 25). Shelley to Peacock, in Letters, etc. (Camelot), p. 264. After two months of cloudless serenity, it began raining cats and dogs.

1837. Barham, I.L. (Blasphemer's Warning). But it rains cats and dogs and you're fairly wet through Ere you know where to turn, what to say, or to do.

Cat's Foot. To live under the cat's foot, phr. (old).—To be under petticoat government; hen-pecked. Cf., Apron-string.—See Cat's-paw.

Cat's Head, subs. (Winchester College).—The end of a shoulder of mutton; further explained by quotation.

1870. Mansfield, School-Life at Winchester College, p. 84. His meal [dinner] took place at six o'clock p.m. in College (in Commoners' it was at one); it was ample in quantity, and excellent in quality. That of the Præfects was nicely served in joints, that of the Inferiors was divided into portions, (Dispars; there were, if I remember rightly, six of these to a shoulder, and eight to a leg of mutton, the other joints being divided in like proportion. All these 'Dispars' had different names; the thick slice out of the centre was called 'a Middle Cut,' that out of the shoulder a 'Fleshy,' the ribs 'Racks,' the loin 'Long Dispars'; these were the best, the more indifferent were the end of the shoulder, or Cat's head, the breast, or 'Fat Flab,' etc., etc.

Catskin-Earls, subs. (parliamentary).—The three senior earls in the House of Lords, viz., the Earls of Shrewsbury, Derby, and Huntingdon, the only three earldoms before the seventeenth century now existing, save those that (like Arundel, Rutland, etc.), are merged in higher titles, and the anomalous earldom of Devon (1553), resuscitated in 1831. [A correspondent of Notes and Queries (7 S. ix., p. 314) suggests that the reason of the application may be that in the seventeenth or late in the sixteenth century an order was issued for the use of ermine instead of the skin of cats—(but were such skins then used?)—for the robes of a peer. If so, however, it is curious that there are not 'catskin dukes' and 'catskin barons' as well. There is yet another theory: an earl's robes consist (now) of but three rows of ermine; but in some early representations they are shown with four, the same as (now) a duke; and it has been suggested that these four rows (quatre-skins) may have given the name of catskin.]

1861-75. Dean Hook, Life of Cardinal Pole, vide note, p. 264. The Earl of Huntingdon is one of the three Catskin Earls of the present day.

Cat's-Meat, subs. (common).—The lungs. [The 'lights' or lungs of animals are usually sold to feed cats.]

Catso, subs. and intj. (old).—The penis. Murray says: 'Also catzo. [a. It. cazzo = membrum virile. Also an exclamation, Cf., the English ejaculation, Balls! Florio says: 'also as cazzica, interjection, "What! God's me! God forbid! tush!"'] Frequent in seventeenth century in the Italian senses; also = rogue, scamp, cullion. Cf., Fr. cul, couillé and couillon as terms of contempt; also see the later Gadso.

Cat's-Paw or Cat's-Foot, subs. (common).—A dupe or tool. [A reference to the fable (Bertrand et Raton) of a monkey using the paw of a cat, dog, or fox, to pull roasted chestnuts oft the fire, current in the sixteenth century, but varying considerably in details. The earliest printed