Word.ws English Dictionary

cater

UK/ˈkeɪtə//ˈkeɪɾɚ/

cater verb: to provide, particularly.

Verb (1)

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

  1. To provide, particularly
    • Noe widdowes curse caters a dish of mine.a. 1635, Thomas Randolph, Poems, On the Inestimable Content He Injoyes, page 4
    • Priya’s parents’ Hinduism seemed to present conflicting views of sex: […] What people don’t know about the Kama Sutra is that it’s actually a text that … very heavily caters to Madonna/whore complexes. That it’s actually quite misogynistic. And that it’s actually catered more for male pleasure and...2020, Pamela Dickey Young, Heather Shipley, “Emerging-Adult Opinions on Religion and Sexuality”, in Identities Under Construction: Religion, Gender, and Sexuality among Youth in Canada...
  2. (ambitransitive) To provide with food, especially for a special occasion as a professional service.
    • I catered for her bat mitzvah.
    • His company catered our wedding.
  3. (figuratively, intransitive) To provide anything required or desired, often (derogatory) to pander.
    • I always wanted someone to cater to my every whim.
    • Art... was... catering to the national taste and vanity.1840, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Paris Sketch Book, volume 2, page 16
  4. (figuratively, intransitive) To tailor something to an intended audience.
    • The business caters for young professionals.
    • A gents' toilet room might be found in a house that caters for the cheaper class of theatrical patronage, where the slangy language of the "goin' to the mat this aft?" style prevails. A gents toilet room is not found in the Southern Hotel. It either "men's" or "gentlemen's".1898, The Hotel/Motor Hotel Monthly, volume 6, page 27

Noun (1)

cater (plural caters)

  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)
    Synonyms:
    acater
  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
    Synonyms:
    caterer
  3. (figuratively, obsolete) Synonym of purveyor: any provider of anything.
    • The eye is loues Cator.1590, Robert Greene, Greenes Mourning Garment, page 28
    Synonyms:
    purveyor

Verb (2)

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

  1. (UK, dialectal) 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

Adverb

cater (not comparable)

  1. (UK, US, dialectal) 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"

Noun (2)

cater (plural caters)

  1. (obsolete, rare) 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. (obsolete) The four of cards or dice.
    • Cater is a very good caste.1519, William Horman, Vulgaria, fol. 280v
  3. 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"

Proper noun capitalized: Cater

Cater (plural Caters)

  1. A surname originating as an occupation.

cater meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

cater in Tamil

உணவளி, நிறைவேற்று

cater in Bengali

খাবার সরবরাহ করা, সেবা দেওয়া

cater in Malayalam

ഭക്ഷണം ശേഖരിച്ചുകൊടുക്കുക, വിളമ്പുക, അഭിരുചികൾ സാധിപ്പിച്ചു കൊടുക്കുക

cater in Kannada

ಒದಗಿಸು

Examples of cater in a sentence

  • And that it’s actually catered more for male pleasure and … males always will have the upper hand according to the Kama Sutra.2020, Pamela Dickey Young, Heather Shipley, “Emerging-Adult Opinions on Religion and Sexuality”, in Identities Under Construction...
  • And on the other side of the enter key, they would almost invariably find forums collectively celebrating individuals’ secret desires, or enterprising smut-mongers catering directly to them.2016 July 14, Mark Hay, “Datagasm”, in Aeon:
  • One by one / Rooted from a place of intolerance / I won't cater to a coward / That hides behind a fraternity / Just so he can feel empowered2016 September 16, “Oblivions Peak” (00:38-00:56 from the start), in Laugh Tracks (hardcore punk, beatdown hardcore), performed by Knocked...
  • The former were catered for both by liquor stores and, to a lesser extent, by the bottle shops of hotels.1998, Sherry Saggers, Dennis Gray, Dealing with Alcohol: Indigenous Usage in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, page 108:

All 40 example sentences with cater

Synonyms of cater

Forms of cater

Verb
third-person singular presentcaters
present participlecatering
past participlecatered
pastcatered
Noun
pluralcaters
alternative formcatour
alternative formcator
alternative formkater
alternative formchator
alternative formcatre
alternative formquatre
Proper noun
pluralCaters
alternative formCator

Past tense of cater: catered

Origin of cater

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

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.

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

Words formed from cater

Words that rhyme with cater

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cater

What does cater mean?
Cater means to provide, particularly.
What is cater in Tamil?
Cater in Tamil is உணவளி, நிறைவேற்று. See Cater meaning in Tamil.
How do you use cater in a sentence?
And that it’s actually catered more for male pleasure and … males always will have the upper hand according to the Kama Sutra.
What part of speech is cater?
Cater can be a verb, a noun, an adverb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cater?
Cater is pronounced /ˈkeɪtə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of cater?
The past tense of cater is catered.

Words near cater in the dictionary

  1. catenulin
  2. catepan
  3. catepanate
  4. catepanates
  5. catepans
  6. cater
  7. cater-corner
  8. cater-cornered
  9. cater-cousin
  10. cater-cousins
  11. cater-waiter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cater (page history and authors); Cater (page history and authors); cater (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cater (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cater (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cater (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cater.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cater.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cater. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.