Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to strut around looking for sexual conquests; thus tomcatting n.

1927		DN V. 478: Tom catting, v., to seek illicit sexual adventure.
1934		W.R. Burnett Goodbye to the Past (con. 1893) 162: You old goat. Can’t you leave a decent woman alone? Just cause your wife’s at the Fair you think you’ve got to go tomcatting around’.
1938		W. Smitter F.O.B. Detroit 151: All de whool night he vas out – tomcettin’ around.
1945		W. Maxwell Folded Leaf (1999) 162: Reinhart roomed with a senior who [...] was out tomcatting every night.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 26: A guy tom-catting around while his wife’s away.
1964		J. Baldwin Blues for Mister Charlie 73: Tom-catting around, I’ll bet. Getting drunk and fooling with all the women.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 200: I shall eschew hooch, quit tomcatting.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 390: tomcat. A male who is on the make or, as a verb, to chase women, from the name of the hero of a bestseller of 1760.
1994		J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 167: It doesn’t pay to tomcat around in singles bars.
2001		Indep. Rev. 14 Feb. 1: Tom-catting his way around the world with every dancer, groupie or vaudeville queen he could lay his hands on.
2017		N. Tabor in Oxford American 2 Mar. 🌐 In 1992, he married a woman he’d met on the job, but this didn’t get in the way of his tomcatting.
2024		Guardian 13 July 🌐 JFK’s conduct mimicked the tom-catting of his father, Joseph, who kept his wife, Rose, permanently pregnant while he took up with movie stars such as Gloria Swanson.