Kit-Cat Club

American  

[kit-kat] / ˈkɪtˌkæt /

Or Kit-Kat Club

noun

1. a club of Whig wits, painters, politicians, and men of letters, including Robert Walpole, John Vanbrugh, William Congreve, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Godfrey Kneller, that flourished in London between 1703 and 1720.

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Etymology

Origin of Kit-Cat Club

From Kit (as short for Christopher) Cat(ling) , alleged to be the keeper of a pie-house where the club met (with play on kit-cat, variant of tipcat; see kit ³, cat ( def. ) )

Example Sentences

As a member of the fashionably rowdy London Kit-Cat Club I assumedly viewed with alarm the publicity which it received last week, due to the shocking behavior of a Lord.

From Time Magazine Archive

At the Whigs' Kit-Cat Club, Addison and Congreve fellowshipped with statesmen and lords; at the Tories' Scriblerus, Swift and his friends forgathered.

From Time Magazine Archive

But what counted all the glamour of public life compared to the possession of Nance Oldfield and an honoured seat at the festive board of the Kit-Cat Club?

From The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield by Robins, Edward

The elder Tonson, the secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, published many of Dryden's works, and the firm continued to be the chief publishers of the time during the greater part of the eighteenth century.

From The Journal to Stella by Swift, Jonathan

He was admitted to the Kit-Cat Club, and in 1706 the interest of Godolphin procured him a seat in the House of Commons.

From The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 by Aitken, George A.