gutter rabbit

Calque of French lapin de gouttière.

gutter rabbit (countable and uncountable, plural gutter rabbits)

1. (countable) A cat (served as a substitute for rabbit).
   • 1823, Charles Persius (aka Chales Dunne), Rouge et Noir. The Academicians of 1823, page 376:

     The Pastry Cook (ambulant) puts in his pies good gutter rabbits ( cats ) .

   • 1882, Émile Zola, L'Assommoir, page 113:

     A waiter placed on the table a rabbit stew in a deep dish. Coupeau turned round. "Say, boy, is that a gutter rabbit? It mews still."

   • 2019, David W. Ball, Empires of Sand:

     The dog population began to shrink, while cat carcasses were decorated with colored paper and hung in butcher shop windows above signs that proclaimed the delicate pleasures of the "gutter rabbits” for sale inside.

   • 2019, Kathleen Sears, Socialism 101, page 76:

     Rat salami became a delicacy, and butchered cats were sold as "gutter rabbits.”

2. (euphemistic, uncountable) Cat meat (cat flesh passed off as rabbit).
   • 1893, Henry Vizetelly, Glances Back Through Seventy Years, page 427:

     "Gutter-rabbit," as it was called, was plentiful enough for a time; but when Paris surrendered there was not a cat left in the city.

   • 2023, Gérard Genette, Bardadrac, page 32:

     During the siege of Paris, and even much later, in certain quarters of Paris, they'd eat 'gutter rabbit' and 'mutton-flavoured rat'.

• roof rabbit