Word.ws English Dictionary

cat o' nine tails

cat o' nine tails is the alternative form 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 tails

pluralcats o' nine tails

Questions about cat o' nine tails

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

Words near cat o' nine tails in the dictionary

  1. cat napping
  2. cat naps
  3. cat nip
  4. cat o' mountain
  5. cat o' mountains
  6. cat o' nine tails
  7. cat organ
  8. cat organs
  9. cat owl
  10. cat piss
  11. cat sat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cat o' nine tails (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 tails.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cat_o%27_nine_tails. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.