Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also kakenjammer) a hangover or its symptoms.

1849		Press. Mess. Cong. II 733: Some of Mr. Hale’s men had kept up a drunken frolic all night, general kakenjammer, therefore all day [DA].
1877		R. Burdette Rise and Fall of the Mustache 291: This ‘Centennial Cordial and American Indian Aboriginal Invigorator,’ [...] has positively no equal for the cure of [...] rattlesnake bites, jim-jams, katzenjammer, tight boots, bad breath.
1891		Richmond Dispatch (VA) 7 June 6/5: Before the drunk had simmered away to the subsequent katzenjammer the vacant desk was offered to [...] another young man who keeps sober.
1906		Sun (NY) 5 Mar. 4/6: He has got the howling cats (katzenjammer) but he takes another hair of the dog that bit him.
1913		J. London John Barleycorn (1989) 126: Alas! as I was to learn at a later period, intellectual intoxication, too, has its katzenjammer.
1921		Mencken letter 15 June in Riggio Dreiser-Mencken Letters II (1986) 447: It now appears he has a sure specific for [...] high blood pressure, smallpox, and katzenjammer.
1938		M. Rand ‘Clip-Joint Chisellers’ in Ten Story Gang Aug. 🌐 Blinkie Booth sagged into the joint. He was carrying a katzenjammer that weighed a ton.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act III: (His manner is full of forced, jaunty self-assurance. But he is sick and beset by katzenjammer).
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: the Katzenjammers . . . the shakes the morning after.
1948		Life 5 Apr. 111/2: The cause was an unrequited love affair, the result one of the most colossal Katzenjammers ever recorded [DA].

2. anxiety or jitters.

1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 65: Thus he contrives to be the Custodian of a continuous Bun and stave off the Katzenjammer.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Easter of the Soul’ in Voice of the City (1915) 156: But the katzenjammer I’ve got don’t spell violets.
1920		Cayton’s Wkly (Seattle, WA) 10 Jan. 3/2: When the wear was done and ended [...] We should have straight way wended to the tasks we used to do; shaking off the katzenjammer that the long drawn conflict made.

3. a catsuit.

1940

S. Longstreet Decade 83: Miff passed out the Bourbon and lifted a bungstarter. ‘No katzenjammers in here and keep it clean.’ [Ibid.] 154: There was a marimba band, and girls came and danced in and spun in nude katzenjammers.