Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an old scraggy woman, a disagreeable harridan; however cite 1885 suggests affection.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Catamaran. an Old Scraggy Woman; from a kind of float made of spars and yards lashed together, for saving persons ship-wrecked.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.:
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1826		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 18 June 582/2: [H]is daughter calls me an old cat, and a catamaran, and a vile old hypocrite.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 33: ‘The cursed drunken old catamaran,’ cried he.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 12: It’s none of your business; go look out for yourself, you thieving catamaran!
1855		Thackeray Newcomes II 329: What a woman that Mrs. Mackenzie is [...] What an infernal tartar and catamaran!
1861		Macmillan’s Mag. (London) IV 113: She was such an obstinate old catamaran.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 161: Says the policeman: ‘You lets them catamarans (the girl’s mistresses) frighten you from doing your duty, you does’.
1885		Edinburgh Eve. News 9 Feb. 3/1: Several addressed her in singular terms, as ‘My dear old Catamaran,’ ‘My darling Tootes,’ etc.
1893		York Herald 1 July 9/3: What on earth posessed you to go off with that old catamaran?
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 15: Catamaran, a disagreeable old woman.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 130: Whew! What an old catamaran!

2. a run-down horse.

1836

T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 115: I vow I feel ashamed to be seen with such a catamaran as that, and that colt looks like Saytan himself.

3. a disagreeable man.

1841

Blackwood’s Mag. Apr. 498/2: One evening, when the old catamran had got the mulligrubs [...] and though he was at last going to hop the twig.