Word.ws English Dictionary

cat-o'-nine

cat-o'-nine is the ellipsis of cat-o'-nine-tails.

Meaning of cat-o'-nine-tails

Noun

cat-o'-nine-tails (plural cats-o'-nine-tails)

  1. A scourge (multi-tail whip) having nine, often knotted, whipcords, formerly used for flogging as naval punishment.
    • But I do tell you one thing, if you ſhould give ſuch Language at Sea, you'd have a Cat o' Nine-tails laid croſs your Shoulders.1695, [William] Congreve, Love for Love: A Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene vii, page 44
  2. A similarly constructed leather nine-tail whip, as used in British penal colonies and certain armies.

Forms of cat-o'-nine

pluralcat-o'-nines
alternative formcat-o-nine

Questions about cat-o'-nine

What is cat-o'-nine the ellipsis of?
Cat-o'-nine is the ellipsis of cat-o'-nine-tails.

Words near cat-o'-nine in the dictionary

  1. cat-nappers
  2. cat-napping
  3. cat-naps
  4. cat-nip
  5. cat-nips
  6. cat-o'-nine
  7. cat-o'-nine-tails
  8. cat-o-nine
  9. cat-o-nines
  10. cat-proof
  11. cat-rigged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cat-o'-nine (page history and authors); cat-o'-nine-tails (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cat-o'-nine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cat-o%27-nine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.