cater-corner
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See also: catercorner
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Presumably a clipped form of cater-cornered, from cater + cornered, q.v., although catty-cornered is attested earlier (1838).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkatəˌkɔːnə/, /ˈkeɪtəˌkɔːnə/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkætəˌkɔɹnɚ/
Audio (US): (file)
Adjective
cater-corner (not comparable)
- (US, Canada) Of or pertaining to something at a diagonal to another; of four corners, those diagonal to another.
- The Empire State Building and the old Altman's Department store are catercorner, at Fifth Avenue and East 34th Street, with the ESB at the southwest, and Altman's at the northeast.
- 2012, Stephen King, chapter 20, in 11/22/63, page 531:
- From my living room, I trained my binoculars on the redbrick monstrosity catercorner from me.
- (UK dialect, obsolete) Uneven, not square, as mislaid stones or people with a limping gait.
Adverb
cater-corner (not comparable)
Translations
diagonally across
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Derived terms
Various corruptions exist, replacing unfamiliar cater with words related to cat, catty, kitty, caddy, etc. An almost identical process occurred in Germanic, with many place names have Kat or similar components, which are not plausible due to relationships with cats (German Katze), but rather are ascribed as due to being crooked, in a corner, or otherwise curved.
- catty-corner, cattycorner, caddy-corner, katty-corner
- catty-cornered, cattycornered, caddy-cornered, katty-cornered
- kitty-corner, kittycorner
- kitty-cornered, kittycornered
See also
References
- “cater-cornered, adv. and adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1972. - “Kitty-corner” in Anatoly Liberman's Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, →ISBN, pp. 133–135.
