polecat, you

polecat, you
   In Britain ‘polecat’ is applied to ferret-like mammals. In the USA it refers to the skunk, and like skunk, is applied to a person who is offensive.
   In the seventeenth century ‘polecat’ was normally used to a woman and often had the meaning of ‘courtesan’. It occurs only once as a vocative in Shakespeare, in The Merry Wives of Windsor (4:ii).
   On that occasion it is applied to Sir John Falstaff, but only because he is at the time dressed as a woman.
   American usage is seen in A Woman Called Fancy, by Frank Yerby, where one man calls another ‘you stinking, ornery, woman-stealing little pole-cat’.

A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . . 2015.

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