cater-corner

UK/ˈkatəˌkɔːnə//ˈkætəˌkɔɹnɚ/

cater-corner adjective: at a diagonal to another; of four corners, those diagonal to another.

Adjective

cater-corner (not comparable)

(Canada, US) At a diagonal to another; of four corners, those diagonal to another.
- The Empire State Building and the old Altman's Department store are catercorner, at Fifth Avenue and East 34th Street, with the ESB at the southwest, and Altman's at the northeast.
- From my living room, I trained my binoculars on the redbrick monstrosity catercorner from me.2012, Stephen King, chapter 20, in 11/22/63, page 531
(UK, dialectal, obsolete) Uneven, not square, as mislaid stones or people with a limping gait.

cater-corner (not comparable)

(Canada, US) Diagonally across from.
- Altman's is sited catercorner to the ESB.

Presumably a clipped form of cater-cornered, from cater + cornered, q.v., although catty-cornered is attested earlier (1838).

What does cater-corner mean?: Cater-corner means at a diagonal to another; of four corners, those diagonal to another.
What part of speech is cater-corner?: Cater-corner can be an adjective or an adverb.
How do you pronounce cater-corner?: Cater-corner is pronounced /ˈkatəˌkɔːnə/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: cater-corner (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-cater-corner.oga.

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