Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a womanizer, a philanderer.

1884		R.C. Hartranft Journal of Solomon Sidesplitter 163: Sally, don’t I like you? [...] Don’t you think I’d tear the eyes out of any tom-cat that dares to look at you for a second?
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 11 Sept. 4/4: Froggie P. (one of the sandy tom-cats) [...] looking for [...] tabbies.
1928		F. Spruell ‘Tom Cat Blues’ 🎵 A mean old tom cat started his midnight creep.
1933		R. Tate Doughman 29: ‘Bah!’ retorted the Sheik [...] ‘Enough o’ that! [...] you pink-ribboned Tom-cat!’.
1949		L. Hughes Tambourines to Glory I vi: Tom cat! Billy goat! You big brown bar stud!
1961		(con. 1952) in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 644: If all the young ladies were little white kittens, / I’d be a tomcat.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 151: You got cock for d’ rooster, pussy for d’ tomcat, and you got dat heifer for d’ bull. It take two to tango!
1996		T. Wolff ‘The Life of the Body’ in The Night in Question 52: Mac was good-hearted, but he was also a tomcat and a liar.
2008		T. Piccirilli Fever Kill 27: You a strutting tomcat now? How in hell can you not know how many kids you have?
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 228: I should wait patiently until you’re discharged [...] then play the tomcat with all those fine dames in the big city.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1935		R. Chandler ‘Nevada Gas’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 173: Let’s go to Reno, get married. . . . I’m sick of this tomcat life.
1967		S. Hugill Sailortown xx: As for the tom-cat habits of the sailorman of old [...] seamen in those days were prone to stay in the blessed state of bachelorhood.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 28: I’d been working divorce shakedowns and sandbagging tomcat hubbies.

3. (US) a promiscuous woman.

1948

(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 161: That gal Janey [...] she was a reg’lar ole tomcat.