# cater

Pronunciation: US say "KAY-tur" /ˈkeɪɾɚ/; UK say "KAY-tuh" /ˈkeɪtə/

## Verb

1. To supply food for others, especially as a paid professional service at a special event.
   - Simple: To make and serve food for an event like a wedding or a party, as a job.
   - _The restaurant will cater the conference, supplying lunch for three hundred attendees._
   - _She catered weddings for a decade before opening her own bistro._
2. To shape or adjust something to suit an intended audience.
   - Simple: To shape a show, product, or message so it fits a certain group of people.
   - _Streaming services cater to niche audiences with highly specific programming._
   - _The museum's new exhibit caters to families with young children rather than to specialists._
3. To provide anything required or desired; often disapproving, suggesting pandering to someone's whims.
   - Simple: To give someone whatever they want, sometimes in a way that seems too eager.
   - _The resort caters to wealthy travelers who expect every comfort._
   - _Critics complained that the network would cater to its advertisers at the expense of honest reporting._
4. To provide or supply something.
   - Simple: To give people the things they need or want.
   - _Frontier outfitters catered to every need of the wagon trains, from flour to fresh axles._
   - _Modern campgrounds cater to travelers with showers, power hookups, and small stores._
6. To place, set, move, or cut something diagonally or at a slant. *(dialectal, UK)*
   - Simple: To put, move, or cut something at a slant, from corner to corner.
   - _The joiner catered the brace between the two posts._
   - _Hill farmers there cater their drainage channels across the slope of the field._

## Adverb

5. Diagonally; moving or placed in a slanting line from corner to corner rather than straight across. *(dialectal)*
   - Simple: In a line that goes from one corner across to the opposite corner.
   - _The old footpath cuts cater across the pasture toward the creek._
   - _The fence runs cater over the hillside, following the old property line._

## Noun

7. A method of ringing nine bells, with the bells moving in four pairs alongside a ninth tenor bell.
   - Simple: A way of ringing nine bells, with four pairs of bells and one deep last bell.
   - _Saturday's quarter peal of cater lasted about forty-five minutes._
   - _The tower captain called the changes as the band rang caters for the wedding._

## Noun

8. A provider of food; a caterer. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A person whose job was to supply food for others.
   - _Every guild feast required a cater to furnish the meat and ale._
   - _The town's caters competed to supply the mayor's banquet._
9. An officer who purchased food supplies for the steward of a large household or estate. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A servant of a great household whose job was to buy its food supplies.
   - _The earl's cater haggled with the fishmongers on behalf of the steward._
   - _Accounts show the cater purchased forty bushels of wheat for the Christmas feast._
10. A provider or purveyor of anything. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A person who provides anything that others need or want.
   - _The old bookseller styled himself a cater of wisdom to the town._
   - _Pamphleteers served as caters of rumor in the troubled years before the war._
11. The four of playing cards or of dice. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The four on a playing card or on dice.
   - _He wagered everything on throwing a cater, and the dice fell his way._
   - _With the cater of clubs in hand, she claimed the trick._
12. Four, as a number. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: The number four.
   - _The tally stick bore a cater of notches for the four loads delivered._
   - _Three came at noon, and a cater more before nightfall._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–4, 8–10** — From Middle English catour ('provisioner'), a shortened form of acatour, from Old French acater ('to buy, to purchase'). It is equivalent to cate plus the suffix -er.
**Meanings 5–6** — Probably ultimately from French quatre ('four'), possibly via cater ('change-ringing'). However, Liberman argues instead for 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 an extension of the dice and change-ringing term. Caterpillar and caterwaul are unrelated, deriving from cognates to cat, though they may have influenced the pronunciation.
**Meanings 7, 11–12** — From French quatre ('four'). It is a doublet of cuatro.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/cater (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).