E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Catamaran.
A scraggy old woman, a vixen; so called by a play on the first syllable. It properly means a raft consisting of three sticks, lashed together with ropes; used on the coasts of Coromandel and Madras.
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“No, you old catamaran, though you pretend you never read novels… .”—Thackeray: Lovel the Widower, chap. i.
