catgut n.1
1. a violin.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Westward Hoe V i: Plague a their Cats guts, and their scraping. | |
| An Evening’s Love II i: (Musick and Guittars tuning on the other side of the Stage) [...] I’ll be with their Cats-guts immediately. | |
 | Parson’s Revels (2010) 61: The Fidlers scrape / Their Cat-Guts. | |
| [ | | Star (London) 17 Aug. 4/3: As to the fiddles [...] the skreeling of the catgut follows one from the street to the restaurant]. |
2. a fiddler or violinist; thus attrib.
| Counter-Rat G2: The Rozzen rubd off, and Cats guts wearie, We ask’d, How they who made men merrie Grew sad themselues. | |
| ‘The Ballad Of Arthur of Bradley’ in An antidote against melancholy 10: And he bid pipe up scraper; / Better be dancing a little, / Then into the Town to tipple. | |
| The bragadocio n.p.: Rom. Sir Popular intends to have a band o' Fiddles towards the Evening. Shuf. No, no, he's for none o’ your Cat-gut Minstrelsie. | |
| The Commissary 19: Doctor Catgut, the meagre musician; that sick monkey-face maker of crochets [...] a fidler! | |
| Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 25 Sept. 4/1: Song on Shakespeare’s Birthday by Dr Catgut [...] Five and Forty Fiddlers, all in a row! | |
| Bacchanalian Mag. 95: As for poor Catgut’s instrument, she much the same did soften — /’Cause she is apt, as I have heard, to cry encore too often. | |
| ‘Jack’s the Lad’ White Friars Collection 4: D’ye hear the merry fiddle going? [...] That’s he, Catgut. | |
| ‘Lucy and Her Music Master’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 16: Yet Catgut tried, and so he ought, to suit her inclination, / And so they did repeat the tune, with some few variations. |
In compounds
1. a fiddler or violinist.
| Counter-Rat E2: Let Hogsdon-Scrapers on their Base / Sound Fum-fum-fum, from tottred case. | |
| ‘A Step to Bath’ 12: We were saluted by the whole Fraternity of Cat-Gut-Scrapers. | |
| Letter Writers II ii: fiddler: We are obliged to play some Country Dances. com.: You are a couple of wretched Scrapers [...] If you had your merit you would have your Fiddles broke about your Heads]. | |
| ‘The Cullies Invitation’ Hop Garland 3: There do they Hop about, / Jigging and cutting Capers, / Bobbing in and out, / after the Cat-gut Scrapers. | |
| Derby Mercury 1 Oct. 2/1: This is played by every Cat-gut Scraper in Dublin. | |
| Jolly Beggars n.p.: Her charms had struck a sturdy caird, As weel’s a poor gut-scraper. | |
| Tristia (1806) 49: Behold! the Cat-gut-scraper with his crowd, / Commands at will the house of hospitality . | |
| Mathews Budget of Fun 103: Halloo! you catgut scrapers! strike up there, will you!? | |
| Mammon in London 1 185: ‘So much for the Colonel’s taste in making us leave Champagne and Claret, for Camporese and cat-gut scrapers’. | |
| Newcastle Journal 25 July 4/3: Mr Hume was mortified at being called a catgut-scraper, though he had no claim to the tirle of a perfect Paganini. | |
| Crim.-Con. Gaz. 29 Sept. 47/1: Two Italian scrapers — vulgarly called fiddlers. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | ‘A Week in Oxford’ in Bell’s Life in Sydney 1 Nov. 4/4: B— proceeded to gain an exit for the paunchy cat-gut scraper. | |
| Idler upon Town 115: Now then, you catgut-scrapers; strike up there! | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 10 Aug. n.p.: A creature [...] who scrapes cat-gut for a living. | |
| Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 10 Aug. n.p.: The maid threw many sheep’s eyes at the cat-gut tormentor. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 7 June 3/1: [heading] Cly-faking v. Cat-gut Scraping. | |
| Great World of London I 44: These would be succeeded by cries of, ‘Scratch up, catgut-scrapers!’. | |
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 19/2: They will call to the orchestra, saying, ‘Now then you catgut-scrapers! Let’s have a ha’purth of liveliness’. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Buffalo Commercial (NY) 22 Nov. 2/3: There are low mutterings of discontent among the wind-jammers and cat-gut scrapers of our own great orchestra. | |
| ‘Career of a Scapegrace’ in Leicester Chron. 10 May 12/1: Paddy Flynn [...] brought out his fiddle and ‘scraped the gut’ for an hour. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Scots Mag. 1 Sept. n.p.: he chanted his improvised lines with fiddle accompaniments; for he was a horrid catgut-scraper. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 16: Catgut Scraper, a fiddler. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 28 Aug. 1/1: Before half time at every hop the cat-gut scraper is hopelessly out of harmony. | |
| Sporting Times 15 Apr. 8/1: The catgut-scraper’s head touched his toes. | |
| Dly News (NY) 16 July 62/4: Collect that many half-baked horn tooters and catgut-scrapers and the finest leader [...] won’t be able to make it sound like anything but backfence warfare. | |
| (ref. to 1870s)Dundee Courier 6 Apr. 6/4: Slang 60 Years Ago — [...] Even the harmless violinist was a ‘catgut scraper’. | |
| Tucson Citizen (AZ) 24 Mar. 6/2: Nero was a crazy catgut scraper. | |
| Frederick Press (OK) 21 Mar. 1/7: Lawson is helping to round up contestants for the ‘Old Fiddlers’ contest [...] Any of you old catgut scrapers who want to get in on the act. | |
| Dly News (NY) 25 Feb. 79/1: A catgut scraper was a violinist. |
2. a violin.
| Luton Times 29 July 3/5: Not liking work, our artist went / With cat-gut scraper, on buskin’ bent. |
a fiddler or violinist.
| Autobiog. 154: [...] and was learning to enjoy what we ivory-pounders and catgut squeezers used to scorn as classical music . |
a fiddler or violinist.
| Life in London 286: Lascars, blacks, jack tars [...] women of colour, old and young [...] were all jigging together, provided the teazer of the catgut was not bilked of his duce. | |
| Morn. Chron. 15 Oct. 4/4: These teazers of the wire and catgut felt too much importance to be placed aloft in the music gallery. | |
| Devizes & Wilts Gaz. 5 Feb. 3/3: The father of this youth [...] who has himself been a teaser of catgut all his lifetime, acquitted himself admirably on the violin. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 29 Aug. 2/5: Hugh Broston, a cat-gut teaser, charged Matthew Brown [...] with assaulting himself and his fiddle. | |
| Sun (NY) 24 may 6/4: That facetious teaser of catgut the Hon. Bobolink Taylor, Governor of Tennessee. | |
| (con. 1835–40) Bold Bendigo 77: There’ll only be one catgut teaser now in the show. |
a fiddler or violinist.
| Guardian IV ii: Do you hear, Wire-string and cats-guts men. |
In phrases
to play the fiddle or violin.
| Vaquero of the Brush Country 95: Some lad would take the fiddle out to the herd with him and ‘agitate the catgut’ to the tune of ‘Billy in the Low Ground’. |
to play the fiddle or violin.
| Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 196: Consigned [...] to idle their dull days in scraping catgut or torturing the tones of a cracked and discordant flute. |
to play the fiddle or violin.
| Satirist (London) 12 Aug. 264/1: [N]othing would please me but learning to play the violin [...] One day [...] I was going to torture the catgut, when I met the girl crying most bitterly. |
to play the fiddle or violin.
| ‘The Dancing-School’ Writings (1704) 235: The Ticklers of Cat-Guts were bagging and casing up their Musical Handsaws. | |
| ‘The Coach Box’ in Bullfinch 313: You may feast your ears with a fife and drum, / Or the cat-gut tickle or wire strum. |