Meaning of whip the cat | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To attempt to get work or money from someone who is too weak or poor to provide it.
   idiomatic
2. To practice extreme parsimony.
   Australia, UK, idiomatic, obsolete
3. To regret; to feel self-pity
   Australia, New-Zealand, idiomatic
4. To blame someone for something that is not their fault.
   idiomatic
5. To get drunk.
   idiomatic
6. To go from house to house working by the day, as itinerant tailors and carpenters do.
   US, dated, dialectal, idiomatic
7. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see whip, cat.
   idiomatic

Examples

“There was a terrible "whipping of the cat, " as it is called, on the day the notes became due. This whipping the cat is nothing more than a parcel of traders puffing at one another's heels . . . to borrow money.”

“[…] seeing that the Committee has already practically defeated the principle that any new business shall have any special exemption under this Bill, I do not propose to take up further time in “whipping the cat” on that question.”

“He kept school within six miles of Cooperstown, on the Burlington road, whipping the cat, just as young Munro did!”

“I "whipped the cat” a bit, the first twenty miles or so, but then, I thought, what did it matter? What was the use of grinding to save money until we were too old to enjoy it.”

“I've shanked across the Old Man Plain, after busting up a cheque, And "whipped the cat" once more again, though I haven't met it yet.”

“I believe one of the members of our hunting section was lucky enough to get a subscription through before they stopped it. The rest of the members of the section have been "whipping the cat” because they left it too late”

“[…] he will be whipping the cat he did not leave this line down to carry light traffic from the hills.”

“But whipping the cat she ever sold her house over here, the young man remarked.”

“When you're stoney broke and walking An' your tucker bag is flat, It will never get you nowhere If you start to whip the cat, For there aint no time for weepin' When you're on a hungry track,”

“And then, as if to prove that we are not always on the drink, or “whipping the cat, or committing suicide,” that we can love and live for others besides self, Neaves' mate came down from the little rise beyond the sliprails, where he had spent his day carving a headstone out of a rough slab of wood that now stood at the head of our sick traveller's grave.”

“Whipping the cat may only increase our resentment and burn us up with anger. We may engage in combat with our neighbor until both are exhauste . Calling a truce and limping back under our own roof would not be peace.”

“When the work was over I'd to nurse the youngest child; Whenever I cracked a bit of a joke, the missus she would smile; The old fellow got jealous, looked like he'd murder me, And there he sat and whipped the cat, that cocky in Bungaree.”

“In the end, meeting a mutual impasse, they adopt a policy of "whip the cat. " The farm labourer gets blamed for whatever goes wrong i.e. for everything.”

“I knew him lads when first he shipped, And this is certain, that Though William by the 'cat' was whipped, He never 'whipped the cat'!”

“Presumably while Armin as Tutch is off “whipping the cat” ( getting drunk ) with the watermen, Blue John, his doubled part, arrives to entertain the wedding guests with his nurse and a boy.”

“'What will they do when the Depression comes?' 'There'll be some whipping the cat when it does.'”

“The practice of "whipping the cat,” though gradually disappearing, is not altogether abandoned by the tailors in this district.”

“I "whipped the cat" three months on the barrens — then I engaged to work for a merchant in Rome.”

“When apprentices and lately indentured servants began to “whip the cat,” the shoemakers among them went from house to house making and repairing shoes.”

“My family has been dressmakers for the Logans since the days my great-great-great-granny whipped the cat for them in the 1800s.”

“Some recommend taking the dead bird away from the cat and whipping the cat.”

CEFR level