Tom cat

See also: tom cat, tom-cat, and tomcat

English

Noun

Tom cat (plural Tom cats)

1. Archaic form of tomcat.
   • 1772, [Thomas Bridges], “Homer’s Iliad. Book VI.”, in A Burlesque Translation of Homer, London: […] S[amuel] Hooper, […], →OCLC, page 252:

     There was but one a real maid, / And ſhe ſo very ugly, that / You’d take her for a great Tom cat, / And therefore ſhe could never hire / A man that would attempt to try her.

   • 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, “Whereby the Reader will be enabled to trace the further course of Miss Fanny Squeers’s Love, and to ascertain whether it ran smoothly or otherwise”, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 101:

     “How you talk!” / “Talk, miss! It’s enough to make a Tom cat talk French grammar, only to see how she tosses her head,” replied the handmaid.

   • 1894 April 21, “Splashes”, in The Wave: A Journal for Those in the Swim, volume XII, number 16, San Francisco, Calif., →OCLC, page 5, column 2:

     The battle is so nearly equal, however, that whenever the two gentlemen meet they glare at each other like black Tom cats in a strange garret.