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any tall, reedlike marsh plant of the genus Typha, especially T. latifolia, having long, sword-shaped leaves and dense, cylindrical clusters of minute brown flowers.
Historical Examples

So two very tired and cross young Fireflies sat on a last year’s cat-tail and sulked.
Among the Night People Clara Dillingham Pierson

What a pity that the world could not have the benefit of one of the pictures that West painted with his cat-tail brush.
The Diving Bell Francis C. Woodworth

Were just making a strategic retreat from cat-tail Marsh while the mosquitoes are having breakfast.
Roy Blakeley, Lost, Strayed or Stolen Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Yet the seeds, say, of the cat-tail flag always find the wet or the marshy places.
The Last Harvest John Burroughs

Line this hole well with dry moss or cat-tail down, the down is best, and place the trap in the nest.
Wolf and Coyote Trapping A. R. (Arthur Robert) Harding

But one nest was all they could find—a ball of grasses fastened between two cat-tail flags.
Citizen Bird Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

This is the root of a plant something like the cat-tail in looks—that is, it has the same kind of long, narrow ribbon-like leaves.
Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store Laura Lee Hope

When the tule is not within reach our cat-tail rush is used.
The Medicine-Men of the Apache. (1892 N 09 / 1887-1888 (pages 443-604)) John G. Bourke

Nest a ball of woven flags and grasses, lined with cat-tail down, and attached to rushes in salt marsh over two feet of water.
The Bird Book Chester A. Reed

Pass the cat-stopper through the ring of the anchor, through the chock, belay it to the cat-tail, and seize it to its own part.
The Seaman’s Friend Richard Henry Dana

noun (Canadian)
another word for bulrush
n.

also cat’s tail, type of plant, mid-15c., from cat (n.) + tail (n.).