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189 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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cat
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synonyms: captainʼs daughter, naval cat ???
► definition
Definition:commonly shortened to the cat, is a type of multi-tailed whip that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment, notably in the Royal Navy and Army of the United Kingdom, and also as a judicial punishment in Britain and some other countries.The term first appears in 1681 in reports of a London murder. The term came into wider circulation in 1695 although the design is much older. It was probably so called in reference to its "claws", which inflict parallel woundstext from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
image: By https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/86/56/9bce562e34ad726c92eeae414035.jpg CC-BY-4.0,photo: by User:OwenX, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1614644
► uses
Uses:
Your skin milord. I'll wager it ne'er felt the lash of a cat, been rubbed with salt, and then flayed off by a pirate chief to make fine stockings for his best cabin boy.
BBC. Blackadder, season 2: Potato
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“Well, well. Two spitfire scratchcats here, have we? A taste of hard labor’ll cure your temper, I trow, and if it doesn’t, well, there’s another cat you’ll meet, name of nine-tails. But there’s other cures for other cats, aren’t there, my sweet pussy?”
Diana Gabaldon. Outlander (1991)
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And I heard the crack of a cat-o’nine-tails, probably loaded with nails for it was followed by cries of pain.
Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 7]
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There would be mention of the bishops in their lawn sleeves, the judges in their ermine robes, the pillory, the stocks, the treadmill, the cat o’ nine tails, the Lord Mayor’s Banquet and the practice of kissing the Pope’s toe.
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