I found this in a golf glossary:
cathole
Localism used by early settlers in southern Michigan for very small (usually less than an acre) shallow depression or hole; presumably originated from the characteristic aquatic plant, the cattail, or perhaps the presence of catfish, which cropped up in such holes; the term came to be applied loosely to any shallow and boggy low area or a pond connected to a stream or swamp http://www.golfgroupltd.com/golf_course_terms.html#c
Though, as the Top Gear guys noted, when you see a “things may fall on you with no warning” sign, what exactly are you supposed to do? Speed up? Slow down? What? How does this sign actually help?
It’s not a warning that things will fall ON you (odds of that are slim) but that something that previously fell onto the road ahead may be a danger, so pay extra attention in that area.
I may have gotten this term from a close friend of mine, who was born German, but raised in South Africa. Gat denotes a gap, cut out in a log or board, to allow water or air to flow freely. There are cognates in several Germanic languages, like the Dutch gat = “hole”; or the Swedish -gatt in Kattegatt. I think it should be accepted as a word in standard English.
Ok. There are apparently several plausible theories for the etymology of cathole as a gegraphic or street name. Maybe you should contact the historical society in one of the villages. If you really, REALLY want to know that is
The human brain is a strange thing. Despite the fact that “cat” and “hole” are both words in and of themselves, my brain did not parse it as “cat-hole”, but rather as “caþole”, like it was a corruption of “Catholic” or a misspelling of “cathode”.
The Imponderables books covered this a long time ago. It’s actually a warning to be careful about things that have already fallen on the road rather than warning that something may fall on you. I seem to recall that there was at least one state–was it New York?–where the road signs actually say “Watch for fallen rocks”, which is both shorter and more precise. It’s possible I’m misremembering that, since I haven’t re-read any of those books since the early '90s, when I was an adolescent.
In the opening paragraphs of Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery is the following passage:
While the use of cat hole to indicate a hawse pipe is attractive to me, the location of the road many miles from Portsmouth or Gloucester argues against that derivation.
On the other hand, it seems quite likely that the maritime reference could easily have been taken from the usage to which Washington alludes, The only problem being that it seems extremely unlikely that folks in the winters of New Hampshire would have provided their houses with anything similar.
One possibility: an immigrant from Virginia or a retired seafarer might well have named the road for a local feature, (cave? covered bridge?), with a small, square opening (Virginian) or round opening (mariner) that reminded him of a cat hole.
Obviously a WAG. I suggest a trip to the local library to look for books written of the history of various counties–a popular pastime in the late 19th century.
It is interesting that Wiktionary specifies that the hawse pipes so named were specifically for those at the stern, providing an association (however coincidental) with the poop deck.
Similarly, in Spanish, puerta gatera or gatera is the little flap-covered square cut at the bottom of a gate or door to let the cat through. Gatera eventually also came to mean those little slits or flaps at the bottom of some types of clothing: I most often see them in pencil skirts, but didn’t those elephant-leg pants also have them some times?
In a book about the town of Berlin, Connecticut,
the author says a local wilds/ mountain area was called the cathole, because it was a hole (the wild area between two hills or ranges , eg as a road cut across a gully … btw I see cathole road has a such a U bend obviously showing the terrain has a gully… )
This is pulling into the lead as a reasonable explanation. There are multiple books written about the history of the area, but all either decline to comment or say the term is of undetermined origin.
Either a (now-lost) feature that looked like a sailor’s cathole, or a “hole” or “holler” where cats lived… I’d put a 99% bet on that pair.
The only place I have ever seen the word ‘gat’ used before was in a comic book. Not sure which one, but it was DC back in the '70s. The word was used in some missive that was a clue to [whatever was going on]. I do remember the characters asking, “What’s a gat?” and having to look it up in an unabridged dictionary.
Now I’m a little leery of referring to the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, but it says “gat” is probably originally from “Gatling gun”. The first citation is from 1897 where it means simply “gun”. I believe it was fairly common in gangster stories and movies in the early to mid 20th century.
) somewhat similar to the German -ch (in Bach or Achtung!).