Perhaps unrelated: "to skin the cat" is a gymnastic move defined: "to perform a gymnastic exercise involving passing the feet and legs between the arms while hanging by the hands from a horizontal bar and so drawing the body up and over the bar." (1845) This expression, originally comes from England. The first published use was either in John Ray’s collection of English proverbs (1678) or in1855 in Charles Kingsley's "Westward Ho." (I can't verify the proverbs book). Also used in Mark Twain's "A connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Possibly originates from the fact people, at one time did in fact skin cats for fur and their was a multitude of ways to do this. There is only one real way to do the gymnastics exercise. Related to the U.K.'s "more than one way to Kill a cat."

I went to a web site (don't remember which one at the moment) about common phrases and this is what I found on There's more than one way to skin a cat. Cat fish have very tough skin and fishermen used to say there's more than one way to skin a cat fish. The web site tells you the correct way to skin a cat fish. Overl time the phrase was shortened to there's more than one way to skin a cat.

The definition I heard was ; there are fresh water catfish and salt water catfish with one having scales and the other not. With one you descale first. I have not verified this answer. But hope it helps.

One of my grandfathers favorite sayings, "Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat besides stickin' his head in a boot jack and tuggin' on his tail!" I always got a chuckle from that,,,,,,I guess you had to be there...LOL

There is more then one way to do something. It's usualy something cynical, or so I've seen in my experiences.

There are several versions of this saying, which suggests that there are always several ways to do something. Charles Kingsley used one old British form in Westward Ho! in 1855: “there are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream”. Other versions include “there are more ways of killing a dog than hanging him”, “there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with butter”, and “there are more ways of killing a dog than choking him with pudding”. Mark Twain used your version in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in 1889: “she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat”, that is, more than one way to get what she wanted. An earlier appearance is in ’Way down East; or, Portraitures of Yankee Life by Seba Smith of about 1854: “This is a money digging world of ours; and, as it is said, ‘there are more ways than one to skin a cat,’ so are there more ways than one of digging for money”. From the way he writes, the author clearly knew this to be a well-known existing proverbial saying. In fact, it is first recorded in John Ray’s collection of English proverbs as far back as 1678. Some writers have pointed to its use in the southern states of the US in reference to catfish, often abbreviated to cat, a fish that is indeed usually skinned in preparing it for eating. However, it looks very much from the multiple versions of the saying, their wide distribution and their age, that this is just a local application of the proverb. The version more than one way to skin a cat seems to have nothing directly to do with the American English term to skin a cat, which is to perform a type of gymnastic exercise, involving passing the feet and legs between the arms while hanging by the hands from a horizontal bar. However, its name may have been suggested by the action of turning an animal’s skin inside out as part of the process of removing it from the body. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mor1.htm

There are other ways to do that particular job.

I suppose it means more than one way of doing something. My dad used to say,"There is more than one way to skin a cat besides sticking his head in a bootjack and yanking on his tail."

Simply that there is more than one way of doing something