# Katy bar the door **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 11, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294 "2021-01-11T22:06:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/1 "2021-01-11T22:06:21Z")
I just came across this phrase in a novel based in Texas. It’s new to me and I wondered if anyone had more information about its meaning and origin. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/2 "2021-01-11T22:13:01Z")
It means “Warning! Danger!” (as if you were telling your wife Katy to bar the door, because the angry mob is coming). ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/3 "2021-01-11T23:19:49Z")
Katy is [Catherine Douglas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Douglas), reportedly. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/4 "2021-01-12T00:09:20Z")
I’ve only heard of it through World Wide Words. Here’s their article on the subject: > **[World Wide Words: Katy bar the door](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm)** > > The American idiom Katy bar the door leaves etymologists at a loss. tl;dr version: origin uncertain > [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Katy is [Catherine Douglas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Douglas), reportedly. From the World Wide Words article: _Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote a poem about her in 1881, entitled The King’s Tragedy , which has been suggested as the direct source of the saying, but the nearest Rossetti comes to the usual form of the expression in the poem is “Catherine, keep the door!”_ _In any case, we now know that it can’t be the source because US researcher Bonnie Taylor-Blake has found examples that predate publication of Rossetti’s poem._ ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/5 "2021-01-12T00:09:47Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Katy is [Catherine Douglas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Douglas), reportedly. That certainly looks likely but begs the question of why it should be a common expression in the Southern US, Probably not a good idea to use your arm to do it either:) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/6 "2021-01-12T00:23:25Z")
It turns up in the most surprising places, like the New York Times [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/us/politics/for-biden-easing-hillary-clintons-grip-on-minority-voters-could-be-tricky.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/us/politics/for-biden-easing-hillary-clintons-grip-on-minority-voters-could-be-tricky.html) ““If she acquits herself well on Oct. 22 and she does well in Iowa, I don’t think Vice President Biden getting in will be a big factor,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, referring to the date for Mrs. Clinton’s testimony before the House panel investigating her use of a private email server as secretary of state. “But if something happens with these emails or she stumbles in Iowa, then it’s **‘Katy, bar the door.’** ”” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/7 "2021-01-12T00:41:51Z")
As amateur and folk etymologist, I humbly submit this poem as a possible origin, published in a posthumous collection 1875, written a few years earlier. [Domestic Strife; or, Tam and Kate](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Poems/aTpxIQZci0wC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=kate+%22bar+the+door%22&pg=PA28&printsec=frontcover) by Alexander Law Orr 1848-1874 “Oh, Tam, oh, Tam” cried Kate “I do declare I hear somebody coming up the stair!” … "Kate, bide a wee , ” cried Tam ; " bar , bar the door; Oh , mercy me ! " \_ Tam bolted to the floor ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/8 "2021-01-12T03:12:08Z")
My grandmother spent the first 12 years of her life in the Ozarks, during the Depression, and she used that expression fairly frequently. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/9 "2021-01-12T03:23:19Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > That certainly looks likely but begs the question of why it should be a common expression in the Southern US, Many Scotch-Irish immigrated to the southern US, and may have brought the legend with them. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/10 "2021-01-12T03:36:40Z")
Interesting. I always understood it to mean “…and it’ll be all over,” which sounds like the usage in the quote from Clyburn above. Also, FWIW, my mother uses it sometimes, and she’s lived nearly all her life in Chicago, never in the south. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/11 "2021-01-12T03:47:28Z")
I would think that the Scots poem [“Get Up and Bar the Door”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Up_and_Bar_the_Door), mentioned in the World Wide Words link above, would be a more likely source. I would think “Get up and bar” could morph into “Katy”. And it has the sense of urgency / danger. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/12 "2021-01-12T03:52:37Z")
As in, “If they get a couple more runs here, it’s Katy bar the door.” Implication: game will be all but over with no chance of the other team coming back. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/13 "2021-01-12T05:58:59Z")
I believe it comes from the [Ka-Bar Knife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka-Bar). AKA Katy Bar. “Katy bar the door” refers to using the knife literally to “bar the door shut”. By extension, to use a katy-bar to defend the door. AKA, the shit has hit the pan and all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/14 "2021-01-12T08:10:50Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > I believe it comes from the [Ka-Bar Knife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka-Bar) How does a 20th C. knife inspire a 19th C. expression? Also, cite for the knife being called a “Katy Bar”? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/15 "2021-01-12T12:56:58Z")
I think those are related meanings - if all you can do now is bar the door and hope that helps, it probably is nearly all over for you. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/16 "2021-01-12T13:43:50Z")
There seems little doubt about the general meaning although the etymology is still open to doubt. Kbar knives are not in the running, and “Get up and bar” morphing into “Katy bar the door” is a bit of a stretch, even with a thick Scottish accent. Kate is a diminutive of Catherine and **Catherine Douglas** , later **Catherine “Kate” Barlass** still seems the most likely origin. I guess that the story was well known even before Rossetti’s poem and may well have inspired it ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/17 "2021-01-12T19:33:14Z")
I never understood it to mean that exactly; more like if someone says _“… and then if happens, Katy bar the door”_, they mean that if happens, get ready, because some unforeseen, unregulated, unprecedented and assuredly unpleasant shit is about to go down. Kind of a warning that if something happens, then the fallout will be dire. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/18 "2021-01-12T21:14:10Z")
My parents had an encyclopedia set from about 1900 that was full of English folk tales, folklore, history, etc. It included the story of Catherine Douglas and the expression. Presumably this was a common folk tale of the settlers who came to the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/19 "2021-01-12T22:45:36Z")
Any Michigander knows the expression from Detroit Red Wings broadcaster Mickey Redmond, who uses it at least once every broadcast. Redmond grew up in Ontario and played hockey in Montreal and Detroit - unlikely sources of the phrase. mmm ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294/20 "2021-01-12T22:52:22Z")
It’s also referenced in this great song from one of the rock era’s finest albums (IMNSHO). [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k0cf_T4g64M/hqdefault.jpg "R.E.M. - Sitting Still (Studio Version)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0cf_T4g64M) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/katy-bar-the-door/930294.md?page=2)