Swing a cat

Origin of: Swing a cat

Swing a cat

Usually used in the sense of not enough room or space to swing a cat and is generally thought to be a reference to the cat o’ nine tails. Naval shipboard floggings, however, were usually carried out on deck where there was lots of room to swing a cat o’ nine tails. Furthermore, the expression not enough room to swing a cat is first cited from the mid-1500s, which pre-dates the first citation of the navy’s cat o’ nine tails by some 150 years. Until further evidence is available, to swing a cat inevitably means to swing a moggy by the tail, which of course is very distressing news for cat lovers.