The Collaborative International Dictionary
Kilkenny cats \Kil*ken"ny cats\n. Two cats fabled, in an Irish story, to have fought till nothing was left but their tails. It is probably a parable of a local contest between Kilkenny and Irishtown, which impoverished both towns.
Usage examples of "kilkenny cats".
This story shows Dickson's skill, as he takes two human characters, making neither one sympathetic or easy to identify with, and still creates an engrossing story where these Kilkenny Cats flummox the belligerent aliens.
There has always been bad blood between the Table Hill and the Three Points, and until they wipe each other out after the manner of the Kilkenny cats, it is probable that there always will be.
It seemed probable that the engagement would last till the combatants had consumed each other, after the fashion of the Kilkenny cats, when there suddenly appeared from nowhere a young man in grey.
I think the Plutonian electorate had the Kilkenny cats in mind: throw them together, stand back, and in a little while there would be just teeth, hair, and eyeballs left.
The wall was pierced by stobor traps, narrow tunnels just big enough for the vicious little beasts and which gave into deep pits, where they could chew on each other like Kilkenny cats- which they did.
The wall was pierced by stobor traps, narrow tunnels just big enough for the vicious little beasts and which gave into deep pits, where they could chew on each other like Kilkenny cats which they did.
Nothing wrong with the individual in most cases-but collectively we're the Kilkenny Cats, unable to do anything but starve and fight and eat each other.