wildcat

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a small or medium-sized cat that lives in the wild, especially a species resembling the domestic cat

   The camera trap captured a wildcat moving silently through the forest.

2. 2
   adj

   carried out without official authorization or outside established rules

   Workers began a wildcat strike before union leaders could approve it.

3. 3
   adj

   undertaken speculatively in an area not known to contain oil, gas, or minerals

   The company drilled a wildcat well far from the proven field.

4. 4
   adj

   unreliable, risky, or operating outside sound financial practice

   Investors lost their savings when the wildcat bank failed.

From Middle English wild cat, literally a cat living outside domestication. American figurative senses grew from the animal's untamed character, especially in nineteenth-century wildcat banking and later in speculative drilling and unauthorized labor action.

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