cater

Etymology 1

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

verb

1. To provide
   1. (transitive, intransitive) To provide with food, especially for a special occasion as a professional service.
      He that doth the Rauens feede, Yea prouidently caters for the Sparrow. a. 1616, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, act 2, scene 3, lines 45 ff.
      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.
      Art... was... catering to the national taste and vanity. 1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Paris Sketch Book, volume 2, page 16
      I always wanted someone to cater to my every whim.

noun

1. (obsolete) 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. c. 1400, Gamelyn, ll. 321 ff.
   Rec. for iij calvys off þe cater of Crystis Cherche. 1512, Account Book of the Hospital of St. John, Canterbury (1510–1556)
2. (obsolete) Synonym of caterer: any provider of food.
   Of his diete catour was scarsite... c. 1430, John Lydgate translating Giovanni Boccaccio, The Fall of Princes, Bk. VII, Ch. x, l. 161
3. (figurative, obsolete) Synonym of purveyor: any provider of anything.
   The eye is loues Cator. 1590, Robert Greene, Greenes Mourning Garment, page 28

Etymology 2

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.

verb

1. (UK dialect) 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. 1577, Barnaby Googe transl. Conrad Heresbach, Foure Bookes of Husbandry, Bk. II, fol. 69v
   ‘Cater’ across the rails ever so cleverly, you cannot escape jolt and jar. 1873, Silverland, page 129

adv

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

Etymology 3

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

noun

1. (rare, obsolete) Four.
   The auditour... cometh in with sise sould, and cater denere, for vi.s. and iiii.d. 1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique..., page 86
2. (card games, dice games, obsolete) The four of cards or dice.
   Cater is a very good caste. 1519, William Horman, Vulgaria, fol. 280v
3. (music) A method of ringing nine bells in four pairs with a ninth tenor bell.
   The very terms of the art are enough to frighten an amateur. Hunting, dodging... caters, cinques, etc. 1872, Henry Thomas Ellacombe, The Bells of Church, page 29
   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. 1878, George Grove, A Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Cater"