Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a fiddler or violinist.

1628		R. Speed Counter-Rat E2: Let Hogsdon-Scrapers on their Base / Sound Fum-fum-fum, from tottred case.
1700		Ned Ward ‘A Step to Bath’ 12: We were saluted by the whole Fraternity of Cat-Gut-Scrapers.
1731		Fielding 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].
1740		‘The Cullies Invitation’ Hop Garland 3: There do they Hop about, / Jigging and cutting Capers, / Bobbing in and out, / after the Cat-gut Scrapers.
1773		Derby Mercury 1 Oct. 2/1: This is played by every Cat-gut Scraper in Dublin.
1786		R. Burns Jolly Beggars n.p.: Her charms had struck a sturdy caird, As weel’s a poor gut-scraper.
1796		‘Peter Pindar’ Tristia (1806) 49: Behold! the Cat-gut-scraper with his crowd, / Commands at will the house of hospitality .
1819		Mathews Budget of Fun 103: Halloo! you catgut scrapers! strike up there, will you!?
1823		[C.M. Westmacott] 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’.
1834		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.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 29 Sept. 47/1: Two Italian scrapers — vulgarly called fiddlers.
1845		‘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.
1848		A. Smith Idler upon Town 115: Now then, you catgut-scrapers; strike up there!
1850		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 10 Aug. n.p.: A creature [...] who scrapes cat-gut for a living.
1850		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 10 Aug. n.p.: The maid threw many sheep’s eyes at the cat-gut tormentor.
1856		Bell’s Life in Sydney 7 June 3/1: [heading] Cly-faking v. Cat-gut Scraping.
1856		H. Mayhew Great World of London I 44: These would be succeeded by cries of, ‘Scratch up, catgut-scrapers!’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew 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’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1878		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.
1884		‘Career of a Scapegrace’ in Leicester Chron. 10 May 12/1: Paddy Flynn [...] brought out his fiddle and ‘scraped the gut’ for an hour.
1889		Scots Mag. 1 Sept. n.p.: he chanted his improvised lines with fiddle accompaniments; for he was a horrid catgut-scraper.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 16: Catgut Scraper, a fiddler.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 28 Aug. 1/1: Before half time at every hop the cat-gut scraper is hopelessly out of harmony.
1905		Sporting Times 15 Apr. 8/1: The catgut-scraper’s head touched his toes.
1933		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.
1935		(ref. to 1870s)Dundee Courier 6 Apr. 6/4: Slang 60 Years Ago — [...] Even the harmless violinist was a ‘catgut scraper’.
1942		Tucson Citizen (AZ) 24 Mar. 6/2: Nero was a crazy catgut scraper.
1957		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.
1971		Dly News (NY) 25 Feb. 79/1: A catgut scraper was a violinist.

2. a violin.

1871

Luton Times 29 July 3/5: Not liking work, our artist went / With cat-gut scraper, on buskin’ bent.

a fiddler or violinist.

1946

W.A. White Autobiog. 154: [...] and was learning to enjoy what we ivory-pounders and catgut squeezers used to scorn as classical music .

a fiddler or violinist.

1821		Egan 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.
1829		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.
1829		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.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 29 Aug. 2/5: Hugh Broston, a cat-gut teaser, charged Matthew Brown [...] with assaulting himself and his fiddle.
1897		Sun (NY) 24 may 6/4: That facetious teaser of catgut the Hon. Bobolink Taylor, Governor of Tennessee.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 77: There’ll only be one catgut teaser now in the show.

a fiddler or violinist.

1633

Massinger Guardian IV ii: Do you hear, Wire-string and cats-guts men.

to play the fiddle or violin.

1929

J.F. Dobie 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.

1838

W.N. Glascock 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.

1832

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.

1700		N. Ward ‘The Dancing-School’ Writings (1704) 235: The Ticklers of Cat-Guts were bagging and casing up their Musical Handsaws.
1781		‘The Coach Box’ in Bullfinch 313: You may feast your ears with a fife and drum, / Or the cat-gut tickle or wire strum.