catch-'em-alive-O

English

Noun

catch-'em-alive-O (plural catch-'em-alive-Os)

1. (slang, obsolete) A live-trap (trap designed to catch animals without killing them).
   • 1855-1857, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

     There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like Neptune’s, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O.