Word.ws English Dictionary

cats-o'-nine-tails

cats-o'-nine-tails is the plural 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.

Questions about cats-o'-nine-tails

What is cats-o'-nine-tails the plural of?
Cats-o'-nine-tails is the plural of cat-o'-nine-tails.

Words near cats-o'-nine-tails in the dictionary

  1. cats' games
  2. cats' paws
  3. cats' tongues
  4. cats'-eyes
  5. cats'-paws
  6. cats-o'-nine-tails
  7. CATSA
  8. catsat
  9. catscratch
  10. catscratches
  11. catself

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cats-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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