tabbyhood

Noun

tabbyhood (uncountable)

1. (dated) The state of being an adult female cat (a tabby).
   • You know, an old she-cat with a mess of kittens growing up to Tom and Tabbyhood will, at some certain period of their career, bring in a mouse and let her offspring play with the poor creature until they acquire the taste for mice.1913, Piano Trade Magazine, page 264
   • When Sterling came round and picked us up in his car to run us out to Cellini's for tea, I was purring like an old tabby myself with a hot stove and saucer of cream guaranteed for the rest of her tabbyhood.1920, The Ladies' Home Journal, page 37
2. (dated) The state of being a spinster.
   • ...to have gained both bachelor's prizes and have beat Professor Sandford, in competition for a Fellowship at Oriel; then to have become college tutor—embued the rising generation for six years with classical literature and philosophy —married a wife verging on her tabbyhood, and retired, without...1824 January, “The Yourth of Reginald Dalton”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 15, page 115
   • Isabella herself, being unmarried, had led a life of tabbyhood—one of their mother's quainter terms.2013 spring, Bobbie Ann Mason, “The Horsehair Ball Gown”, in The Virginia Quarterly Review, volume 89, number 2, page 93