Diagonally opposite or across. Shropshire, Lancashire, and Leicester Dialect. N.E.D., s.v. ‘CATER.’
1837. One of that class … who, when compelled to share their bed with another, lie in that engrossing posture called “catty-cornered.”—J. C. Neal, ‘Charcoal Sketches,’ p. 196.
1843. Two strings diagonally fastened, or as he better understood it,—“kattekorner’d-like.”—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ i. 261.
1847. When he [the bear] got putty cloast he walked ’round catecorned-like.—W. T. Porter, ed., ‘A Quarter Race in Kentucky,’ etc., p. 190.
a. 1854. When there were about sixty couples to be reckoned from top to bottom, every one that cantered—nay, galloped, through all the cris-crossings, meanderings, trianglings and catty-cornerings, from the head to the foot without stopping to take a long breath, was set down instanter as consumption proof.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iv. 79.
1896. Let’s take this catecornered cut through here.—Ella Higginson, ‘Tales from Puget Sound,’ p. 88.
