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cat-o’-nine-tails
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Illustration showing British prison life in 1907: men walking on a treadmill for hard labor at the top, and at the bottom, a prisoner tied to a post being whipped with a cat-o-nine-tails while a guard watches.
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cat-o’-nine-tails

whip
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Illustration showing British prison life in 1907: men walking on a treadmill for hard labor at the top, and at the bottom, a prisoner tied to a post being whipped with a cat-o-nine-tails while a guard watches.
cat-o'-nine-tails British prisoner on a penal treadmill being struck with a cat-o'-nine-tails.

The cat-o'-nine-tails is a whip characterized by its nine knotted lines or cords attached to a handle. Its name is thought to derive from the resemblance of the scars it inflicts to scratches from a cat.1

This type of whip has been used historically as a form of judicial punishment and for maintaining discipline in various institutions, including schools, prisons, and military forces. The cat-o'-nine-tails was constructed from nine knotted cords or thongs of rawhide. While imprisonment has largely replaced corporal punishment for crimes, whips like the cat-o'-nine-tails were historically instruments of severe discipline and punishment.2

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3 Britannica Sources
  1. cat-o'-nine-tails
  2. cat-o'-nine-tails
  3. flogging

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