Cat's water is a wonderfully backhanded piece of obsolete British slang for gin — specifically cheap, rough gin. The implication is obvious: this stuff is barely fit for a cat, let alone a person. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, gin was the drink of the urban poor, sold in dodgy establishments and associated with social ruin. Calling it cat's water was the slang world's commentary on its quality. The term is gloriously extinct but paints a vivid picture of the gin-soaked streets of Georgian London.
He could only afford a glass of cat's water from the street corner seller, but it did the job.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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(slang, obsolete) Gin.
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