cater

From Middle English catour (“acater, provisioner”), aphetic form of acatour (“acater”), from Old French acater (“to buy, to purchase”). Equivalent to cate +‎ -er.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪtə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪtɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪtə(ɹ)

cater (third-person singular simple present caters, present participle catering, simple past and past participle catered)

1. To provide, particularly:
   • a. 1635, Thomas Randolph, Poems, page 4:

     Noe widdowes curse caters a dish of mine.

   1. (transitive, intransitive) To provide with food, especially for a special occasion as a professional service.
      • a. 1616, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 3, lines 45 ff.:

        He that doth the Rauens feede,
        Yea prouidently caters for the Sparrow.

      I catered for her bat mitzvah.

      His company catered our wedding.

   2. (intransitive, figurative, with 'to') To provide anything required or desired, often (derogatory) to pander.
      • 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Paris Sketch Book, volume 2, page 16:

        Art... was... catering to the national taste and vanity.

      I always wanted someone to cater to my every whim.

• caterer
• cater-waiter
• self-catering, self-catered

cater (plural caters)

1. (obsolete) Synonym of acater: an officer who purchased cates (food supplies) for the steward of a large household or estate.
   • c. 1400, Gamelyn, ll. 321 ff.:

     I am oure Catour and bere oure Alther purse.

   • 1512, Account Book of the Hospital of St. John, Canterbury (1510–1556):

     Rec. for iij calvys off þe cater of Crystis Cherche.

2. (obsolete) Synonym of caterer: any provider of food.
   • c. 1430, John Lydgate translating Giovanni Boccaccio, The Fall of Princes‎, Bk. VII, Ch. x, l. 161:

     Of his diete catour was scarsite...

3. (figurative, obsolete) Synonym of purveyor: any provider of anything.
   • 1590, Robert Greene, Greenes Mourning Garment, page 28:

     The eye is loues Cator.

• catour, cator, kater, chator (obsolete)

Probably ultimately from French quatre (“four”), possibly via cater (“change-ringing”), although Liberman argues for a derivation from a North Germanic prefix meaning "crooked, angled, clumsy" from which he also derives cater-cousin and, via Norse, Old Irish cittach (“left-handed, awkward”). He finds this more likely than extension of the dice and change-ringing term cater as an adverb, given the likely cognates in other Germanic languages. Caterpillar and caterwaul are unrelated, being derived from cognates to cat, but may have influenced the pronunciation of Liberman's proposed earlier *cate- or undergone similar sound changes.

cater (third-person singular simple present caters, present participle catering, simple past and past participle catered)

1. (UK dialect) To place, set, move, or cut diagonally or rhomboidally.
   • 1577, Barnaby Googe transl. Conrad Heresbach, Foure Bookes of Husbandry, Bk. II, fol. 69v:

     The trees are set checkerwise, and so catred [Latin: partim in quincuncem directis], as looke which way ye wyl, they lye leuel.

   • 1873, Silverland, page 129:

     ‘Cater’ across the rails ever so cleverly, you cannot escape jolt and jar.

cater (not comparable)

1. (UK dialect, US) Diagonally.
   • 1881, Sebastian Evans, Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs, s.v. "Cater and Cater-cornered":

     Cater and Cater-cornered, diagonal; diagonally. To ‘cut cater’ in the case of velvet, cloth, etc., is... ‘cut on the cross’. Cater-snozzle, to make an angle; to ‘mitre’.

• cater-corner, catercross, cater-snozzle, caterways, caterwise, cut cater

From French quatre (“four”). Doublet of cuatro.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪtə/, /ˈkatə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪtəɹ/

cater (plural caters)

1. (rare, obsolete) Four.
   • 1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique..., page 86:

     The auditour... cometh in with sise sould, and cater denere, for vi.s. and iiii.d.

2. (card games, dice games, obsolete) The four of cards or dice.
   • 1519, William Horman, Vulgaria, fol. 280v:

     Cater is a very good caste.

3. (music) A method of ringing nine bells in four pairs with a ninth tenor bell.
   • 1872, Henry Thomas Ellacombe, The Bells of Church, page 29:

     The very terms of the art are enough to frighten an amateur. Hunting, dodging... caters, cinques, etc.

   • 1878, George Grove, A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Cater":

     Cater... The name given by change ringers to changes of nine bells. The word should probably be written quaters, as it is meant to denote the fact that four couples of bells change their places in the order of ringing.

• catre, quatre

• ace, deuce, trey, cinque, sice

• cater-point, cater-trey

• “† ’cater, n¹.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1889.
• “cater, n²., adv., v¹., and v².”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1889.
• “cater”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “cater”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• "Kitty-corner" in Anatoly Liberman's Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, →ISBN, pp. 133–135.

• Carte, Trace, acter, caret, carte, crate, creat, react, recta, reäct, trace

From Latin quattuor.

cater

1. four

cater m (uncountable)

1. four

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

cāter m

1. tomcat

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: kater
• Limburgish: kater

• “cater”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “cater (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I