cat melodeon
English
Alternative forms
- catmalogen, cat malogen, cat melodium
Etymology
Compare cat (“terrible”) and cat's melody.
Ciaran Carson suggests influence of Irish cat marbh/cat mara; literally "dead cat"/"sea cat", figuratively "calamity".[1]
Adjective
- (Ireland, informal) terrible, appalling; of very poor quality
- 1997, Michael Coady, “The Longest Puck”, in All Souls, Gallery Press, →ISBN, page 65:
- We're fed up of
festivals and funerals
and Munster Finals
with backs that were
cat melodeon.
- 2019, Conor Bowman, chapter 11, in Hughie Mittman's Fear of Lawnmowers, Hachette UK, →ISBN:
- I'm going to do something cat-melodeon wrong and say you did it and everyone will believe me.
- (Ireland, informal) cacophonous; raucous
- 2021 Christy Moore and Wally Page, "Zozimus & Zimmerman"
- The lights went down and the crowd went cat melodeon
- We were all revved up and ready to engage
- Having hitch hiked all the way from Minnesota
- Zimmerman was there before us on the stage
- 2021 Christy Moore and Wally Page, "Zozimus & Zimmerman"
References
- Carson, Ciaran (1996) Last Night's Fun: A Book about Irish Traditional Music, Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 123
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