Nearly equivalent to “a fish out of water.”
1824. “What was king Caucus like?” said an old gentleman, raising his spectacles. “Like?” said another, “why, like ‘a cat in a strange garret,’ frightened at every step it took, and alarmed at every thing that it saw.”—Woodstock (Vt.) Observer, March 16: from Niles’ Weekly Register, xxv. Feb. 28, p. 405/2.
