cater-cousin

Meaning

Noun

• Distant relative, especially a very distant relative, of doubtful relation.
• 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

Related

Similar words

• bosom buddy, bosom friend, intimate

Origin

• From cater + cousin. Stephen Skinner proposed a derivation of this use of cater from French quatre ("four"), used in place of quatrième and Samuel Johnson considered its broadness implicit in the "ridiculousness" of a term for a relation as remote as a fourth cousin. The OED demurs, finding quatre-cousin to be an "absurdly impossible" construction in French and other senses of cater unrelated except for those involving the provision of food. It supports the idea that cater cousins were originally those considered related only or especially through being boarded together, after the manner of companion and foster father etc. Anatoly Liberman, discussing the term kitty-corner, considered derivation from "fourth cousin" as implausible, given the English tendency to employ calques of French terms as in "four corners of the world" from les quatre coins du monde. He similarly regards the OED's derivation as a folk etymology, although allowing such a (mis)understanding may have influenced the word's use in relation to mess-hall fellows. He instead argues in favor of a lost North Germanic prefix with the sense "crooked, angled, clumsy".