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Webster 1913 Edition
Cater-cousin
Webster 1828 Edition
Cater-cousin
CATER-COUSIN
,Noun.
Definition 2024
cater-cousin
cater-cousin
English
Alternative forms
- cater cousin
Noun
cater-cousin (plural cater-cousins)
- Distant relative, especially a very distant relative, of doubtful relation.
- William Shakespeare, ca. 1600 Merchant of Venice, ii. 2.
- His master and he, saving your worship’s reverence, are scarce cater-cousins.
- William Shakespeare, ca. 1600 Merchant of Venice, ii. 2.
- A close or good friend. An intimate. A bosom friend. An intimate friend who is not a blood relation. A person treated as a cousin (relative) who is not a blood relation
- Sheila B. Blume. 2006. Cater-cousin, The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
- I am head over heels over Fred—
- My most intimate friend, so I've said;
- I have overheard buzzin's
- That we're cater-cousins.
- No matter—we're soon to be wed.
- I am head over heels over Fred—
- Thomas Ingoldsby (a.k.a. Richard Barnham). 1840. Mrs. Botherby's Story: The Leech of Folkestone. The Ingoldsby Legends, or Mirth and Madness, First Volume. London, Richard Bentley and Son, 1894.
- The world talks loudly of your learning, your skill, and cunning in arts the most abstruse; nay, sooth to say, some look coldly on you therefore, and stickle not to aver that you are cater-cousin with Beelzebub himself.
- Sheila B. Blume. 2006. Cater-cousin, The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
Synonyms
- (close friend): bosom buddy, bosom friend, intimate
References
- 1 2 3 Liberman, Anatoly. An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-81665272-3, “Kitty-corner”, pp. 133–135
- Knapp LM. Smollett and Johnson, Never Cater-Cousins? Modern Philology, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Nov., 1968), pp. 152-154.