Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a Roman Catholic.

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1959		Lahey-Hogan As I Remember It 131: The Boslers were Lutherans and were supposed to be very religious. The Barnes were Catholic and that was a very great bone of contention. On the school ground they would yell, ‘Catlickers’ and the other side would call, ‘Lutes who follow a crazy Catholic monk who never did know anything.’ [HDAS].
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS 91/2: cat lick n. A Catholic.
1976		M. Braly False Starts 10: My father found a new wife [...] a Catholic, who began to convert us all. My father called her a ‘cat licker.’.
1993		(con. 1920s) W. Woodruff Road to Nab End (2003) 216: I don’t know what she would have said if I’d called her a ‘Cat-licker.’.
1998		M. Ellinger ‘Melting Pot’ 🌐 That melting pot, it got my grandma. / Skinny girl from County Limerick, / taunted in the schoolyard – ‘cat lick-er, cat licker.’.
2000		(con. 1930s) B. Garrott , OP (St. Gertrude Parish, Cincinnatti) homily 11 June 🌐 As [my father] made his way up the last hill, he had to pass a group of public school kids who were not Catholic. They would yell out: ‘Hey look, there goes the “cat-licker”.’.
2002		(con. 1927–30) J.W. Fulks ‘Reflections’ 🌐 The kids from 4th Ward would often taunt me with catcalls and call me names like ‘Cat-licker’ and worse.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 255: ‘[Y]ou’ll have to do penance, little Catholic girl. Cat lick’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1970

E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 386: Who would do something like that? Goddamn catlicker sonofabitch!