[f. CAT sb.1]
1. Naut. (trans.) To raise (the anchor) from the surface of the water to the cat-head.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), To cat the Anchor, is to hook a tackle called the cat to it’s ring, and thereby pull it up close to the cat-head.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, ii. (1859), 80. Lend a hand to cat the anchor.
1882. Nares, Seamanship (ed. 6), 203. The cable … will … clear itself in catting.
b. To cat and fish: to raise the anchor to the cat-head and secure it to the ship’s side.
1808. Regul. Service at Sea, V. iv. § 25. Never … to give her head-way untill the anchors are catted and fished.
1881. W. C. Russell, Sailor’s Sweeth., I. iii. 59. Everything was now snug forward, the anchor catted and fished, and the decks clear.
2. To ‘draw through a water with a cat’: see CAT 14.
3. To flog with the cat-o’-nine-tails.
1865. Spectator, 18 Nov., 1271/1. Thirty of them were lashed to a gun, and catted with fifty lashes each.
4. dial. and colloq. To vomit. See To shoot the cat (CAT sb.1 13 d).
Hence Catted ppl. a.; Catting vbl. sb.
