not enough room to swing a cat

English

Etymology

Attested 1665, by which point already in common use; perhaps of naval slang origin.

While it is frequently stated that the phrase is derived from cat-o’-nine-tails (“type of whip”), this latter term is only attested from 1695, and hence this idiom presumably derived from literally swinging a cat around, as by the tail.

Noun

not enough room to swing a cat (uncountable)

1. (informal) Very little space (available) (of a very small room).
   • 1665, Richard Kephale Medela Pestilentiae

     They had not space enough (according to the vulgar saying) to swing a Cat in.

   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VIII:

     My own apartment, to take a case in point, was a sort of hermit's cell in which one would have been hard put to it to swing a cat, even a smaller one than Augustus, not of course that one often wants to do much cat-swinging.

Usage notes

By extension from the idea of confined space, the idiom that one can't swing a cat without hitting an X conveys that the relevant context is lousy with X. Thus, the statement that you can't swing a cat without hitting a fool around here conveys that fools are (superfluously) plentiful around here.

Synonyms

• confined, cramped, tiny

Translations

of a room, very little space available

• Hungarian: egy gombostűt se lehetett volna leejteni
• Japanese: 猫の額 (ja)
• Russian: яблоку негде упасть (ru) (jabloku negde upastʹ)
• Ukrainian: го́лці ні́де впа́сти (hólci níde vpásty), я́блуку ні́де впа́сти (jábluku níde vpásty)
• Welsh: does dim lle i chwipio chwannen

See also

• packed like sardines