kitty-corner

UK/ˈkɪtikɔːnə/US/ˈkɪɾiˌkwoɹnəɹ/

kitty-corner is the alternative form of cater-corner.

Meaning of cater-corner

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.
(UK, dialectal, obsolete) Uneven, not square, as mislaid stones or people with a limping gait.

kitty-corner (not comparable)

(Canadian-Prairies, Northern-US) Cater-corner: located diagonally in relation to something, especially across an intersection.
- Unit #5, kittycorner across the little street from Ennet House, is for catatonics and various vegetablish, fetal-positioned mental patients […].1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 196
Synonyms:

catty-corner

A variant of cater-corner influenced by cat and kitty.

What does kitty-corner mean?: Kitty-corner means cater-corner: located diagonally in relation to something, especially across an intersection.
What is kitty-corner the alternative form of?: Kitty-corner is the alternative form of cater-corner.
What part of speech is kitty-corner?: Kitty-corner is an adverb.
How do you pronounce kitty-corner?: Kitty-corner is pronounced /ˈkɪtikɔːnə/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: kitty-corner (page history and authors); 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

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