Catawampus (pronounced kat-uh-wom-puhs)
(1) Out
of alignment, in disarray or disorder; crooked, askew, awry.
(2) Positioned
diagonally; cater-cornered; obliquely.
(3) Of
fierce demeanor or appearance (archaic).
1830s: A
US colloquialism which originally meant “utterly” or “of fierce demeanor or
appearance”, apparently influenced by (wild)cat + rumpus or the fierce looking catamount
(cougar, puma, lynx). As a noun, the US
use described “a fierce imaginary animal, a bogeyman”. The rapid meaning shift to “positioned
diagonally” (which influenced the later use to mean “askew; awry” is explained
by the construct being cata- (diagonally (from cater-cornered)) + -wampus. The alternative spellings recorded include caddywompus,
caliwampus, caliwampous, cankywampus catawamptious and (influenced by cat,
catty, kitty) cattywampus, catiwampus, cattywampous; kittywampus, kittywumpus. The synonyms include askew, awry, crooked,
off-kilter, skewampus & skiwampus. Catawampus
is an adjective & adverb (and historically a noun); the noun plural was catawampuses.
Kitty corner.
The term “cater-cornered” dates from the early nineteenth century and has
an archaic feel but is still in use variously as kitty-cornered, catty-cornered
& caddy-cornered, depending on the region; catty-corner is the form most
often used in the UK while kitty-corner prevails in North America and although
it’s rare anywhere, caddy-corner seems to know no boundaries. It has nothing to do with felines and refers
to something which lies in a position diagonally across from something else and
can be applied to streets, rooms, or any other space or place where the
requisite corners exist. As a descriptor
of location, it’s dependent not on proximity but the diagonality of the
relationship; a building might be within a few feet of the one beside or on the
opposite side of the street but to be catty-cornered, it need not be all that
close, just in the right place.
Catty-cornered is said to have
been the original version, from the French quatre (four), meaning four. Quatre
was from the Old French quatre, qatre
& catre, from the Latin quattuor, from the primitive Indo-European
ketwóres and was picked up by a number of European
languages including the Catalan quatre,
the Italian quattro, the Portuguese quatro and the Spanish cuatro.
In English, quatre became cater,
used to showcase the four spots on a die or the four legs of a beast and, as
cater-cornered, the four corners created where two streets cross. From here, the term evolved to describe the
buildings positioned diagonally from each-other on those corners, like the
opposite corners on a square die. Then,
cater-cornered evolved as catty-corner, kitty-corner and caddy-corner,
something not uncommon at a time when regionalisms were much more common. Wampus was US slang for a lout or yokel but
the use may have been a corruption of the archaic Scottish wampish which, when used as an intransitive verb, meant “to
wriggle, twist, swerve or flop about (a la a swimming fish).
Some sources suggest the earliest use appears to have been the adverbial catawampusly (1834) which expressed no specific meaning but was an intensifier meaning “utterly, completely; with avidity, fiercely, eagerly”. The noun as catawampus dates from 1843 when it was used as a name for an imaginary hobgoblin, a fierce imaginary animal or a bogeyman (and even a sense of fright), perhaps from influence of catamount (cougar, puma, lynx). The adjective was used since the 1840s as an intensive but etymologists caution the use was almost exclusively in British publications lampooning the Americanisms in US English. By 1864 it has come to mean “askew, awry, wrong” but the regionalism which most spread was that in North Carolina (dating from 1873) which meant “in a diagonal position, on a bias, crooked” and that persists to this day. This orthodox etymology is generally accepted but because documentary evidence of the origin is lacking, it really is all speculative and etymologists note catawampus may well have been one of the many jocular, pseudo-classical formations popular in the slang of mid-nineteenth century America.
Trends of use of "kitty-corner" & "catty-corner" in the US, one of a series of statistical representations by Joshua Katz, Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University. Catty-corner is the preferred form south of the Mason-Dixon Line but it fades from use in Florida, reflecting presumably the inward migration pattern from the northern states.
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