Meaning
To toy with an opponent - letting them almost escape, or almost succeed, before closing in again. The phrase covers a pursuer who could finish things but prolongs the chase, and, by extension, any standoff of evasion, coyness, and provocation between two unequal parties. Strongly implies the stronger party is toying; for a genuinely even contest 'battle of wits' fits better. Regional use: General English (political nickname popularised).
Origin
The image is as old as observation: a cat playing with its prey before killing it was a stock comparison centuries before the fixed phrase existed. The idiom took hold in the early twentieth century, and British politics then gave it a household showcase. The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913 - rushed through Parliament to end the force-feeding of hunger-striking suffragettes - instead released them when weak and rearrested them when recovered, a cycle critics instantly named 'the Cat and Mouse Act', after the cat's habit of letting its prey temporarily escape. The act backfired, turning the suffragettes into objects of public sympathy, and the phrase spread into general use for any deliberate, drawn-out pursuit - police and suspects, regulators and banks, flirtation and negotiation.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a game of cat and mouse
- cat-and-mouse
- play a cat-and-mouse game
Usage Examples
- Regulators played cat and mouse with the exchange for a decade, serving notices the lawyers answered with careful half-truths.
- The police knew exactly which pub he drank in; the game of cat and mouse was about choosing the evening he stopped expecting them.
- She played cat and mouse with the interviewer - answering just enough to stay interesting, never enough to be pinned down.