cater

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to give what is desired or needed, especially support, food or sustenance

   They catered to my every need.

2. 2
   verb

   To provide, particularly

   Noe widdowes curse caters a dish of mine.

3. 3
   verb

   To provide

   I catered for her bat mitzvah.

4. 4
   noun

   Synonym of acater: an officer who purchased cates (food supplies) for the steward of a large household or estate.

   I am oure Catour and bere oure Alther purse.

5. 5
   noun

   Synonym of caterer: any provider of food.

   Of his diete catour was scarsite...

6. 6
   noun

   Synonym of purveyor: any provider of anything.

   The eye is loues Cator.

7. 7
   verb

   To place, set, move, or cut diagonally or rhomboidally.

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

8. 8
   adv

   Diagonally.

   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’.

Etymology

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…