kittle cattlen.

1818 W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian i, in Tales of my Landlord 2nd Ser. IV. 5 Kings are kittle cattle to shoe behind, as we say in the north.

1876 ‘G. Eliot’ Daniel Deronda II. iii. xxv. 152 She is kittle cattle to shoe, I think.

1881 H. Shanks Peasant Poets Scotl., & Musings 342 Now, women are (compared wi' men), More contumacious; and when Their ‘birse’ is up,—my certy! then They're kittle cattle.

1888 Trans. Highland & Agric. Soc. 20 197 Even as machines are easily deranged so sheep are ‘kittle cattle’; no more delicate animal breathes.

1900 E. T. Fowler Farringdons i. 15 She knew a great portion of the Methodist hymn-book by heart, and pondered long over the interesting preface to that work, wondering much what ‘doggerel’ and ‘botches’ could be—she inclined to the supposition that the former were animals and the latter were diseases; but even her vivid imagination failed to form a satisfactory representation of such queer kittle-cattle as ‘feeble expletives’.

1926 H. W. Fowler Dict. Mod. Eng. Usage 717/1 It is well known that and which & but which are kittle cattle, so well known that the more timid writers avoid the dangers associated with them.

1935 Times Educ. Suppl. 28 Dec. p. iv/1 It helps to discount the general impression that, as a race, they [sc. lilies] are kittle-kattle.

1942 F. Smythe Alpine Ways 14 The ‘he man’ mountaineer who scorns tourists as mere kittle kattle, the tourists who jeer at the mountaineer as mad, have yet to gain that fuller understanding which abhors intolerance.

1966 Sunday Express 13 Mar. 16/7 Princesses in love..are at times Kittle Cattle.