Word.ws English Dictionary

cat in the pan

cat in the pan noun: a somersault.

Noun

cat in the pan

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) A somersault.
  2. (UK, figuratively, obsolete, slang) A reversal of a position.
    • When George in pudding-time came o'er, / And moderate men looked big, sir, / I turned a cat-in-the-pan once more, / And so became a Whig, sir; […]1927, Songs of the Immortals, volume 1, page 33
  3. (UK, figuratively, obsolete, slang) A falsehood that is spread and attributed to another person.

Questions about cat in the pan

What does cat in the pan mean?
Cat in the pan means a somersault.
What part of speech is cat in the pan?
Cat in the pan is a noun.

Words near cat in the pan in the dictionary

  1. cat houses
  2. cat ice
  3. cat in hell's chance
  4. cat in the meal tub
  5. cat in the meal-tub
  6. cat in the pan
  7. cat in the sack
  8. Cat Island
  9. cat ladies
  10. cat lady
  11. cat litter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cat in the pan (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 in the pan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cat_in_the_pan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.