cater-corner

• catercorner, catty-corner, kitty-corner

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkatəˌkɔːnə/, /ˈkeɪtəˌkɔːnə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkætəˌkɔɹnɚ/

cater-corner (not comparable)

1. (US, Canada) Of or pertaining to something 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.

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

cater-corner (not comparable)

1. (US, Canada) Diagonally across from.

   Altman's is sited catercorner to the ESB.

Various corruptions exist, replacing unfamiliar cater with words related to cat, catty, kitty, caddy, etc. An almost identical process occurred in Germanic, with many place names have Kat or similar components, which are not plausible due to relationships with cats (German Katze), but rather are ascribed as due to being crooked, in a corner, or otherwise curved.

• catty-corner, cattycorner, caddy-corner, katty-corner
• catty-cornered, cattycornered, caddy-cornered, katty-cornered
• kitty-corner, kittycorner
• kitty-cornered, kittycornered

• cattywampus, catawampus, kittywampus

• “cater-cornered, adv. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1972.
• “Kitty-corner” in Anatoly Liberman's Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008, →ISBN, pp. 133–135.