wildcat
/ˈwaɪ.əldˌkæt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.06 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cat that lives in the wilderness, specifically:
noun
A cat that lives in the wilderness, specifically:
noun
A person who acts like a wildcat, (usually) a violent and easily-angered person or a sexually vigorous one.
noun
An offensive formation with an unbalanced line and a snap directly to the running back rather than the quarterback.
noun
Example Sentences
- "2003 April 24, CNN Upon checking it out, we found a total of 13 newborn wildcats: nine newborn tigers and two newborn leopards."
- "2002 September 26, The Young and the Restless Anyone who's man enough to have landed a wildcat like you had to be quite a guy."
- "Then the development of the home country was neglected for some wildcat idea of bringing up the backward people of other lands."
- "[…] the Tank being a small arena theatre located out between a traffic analysis firm and a wildcat transistor outfit that hadn't been there last year and wouldn't be this coming but meanwhile was underselling even the Japanese and hauling in loot by the steamshovelful."
- "2003 June 15, CNN Jewish settlers have also been active putting up five new wildcat outposts on hilltops in the West Bank to try to thwart their Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."
- "You'd have to be very rich or very desperate to go wildcatting that far east."
Etymology
From Middle English wyld cat, wylde cat (in the plural as wild cattes, wylde catis, wyle cattes), equivalent to wild + cat. Cognate with Middle Low German wiltkatte, German Wildkatze, Swedish vildkatt. Its adjectival senses were originally American and derived from the "wildcat banks" of Michigan, following its elevation to statehood in 1837. Two laws—one easing the requirements for establishing a new bank and another occasioned by the Panic of 1837 that removed the need for payment in specie—led to the creation and collapse of around 50 banks within two years. The term is apocryphally derived from a wildcat supposedly featured on the currency printed by one of these banks, but more probably derived from the remote locations "where the wildcats roamed" chosen by these banks to avoid oversight and minimize redemption of notes.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈwaɪ.əldˌkæt/
- British English: /ˈwaɪldˌkæt/
Usage
- British usage
- American usage
- Obsolete
- Derogatory
- Dated
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Abyssinian wildcat
African wildcat
Arabian wildcat
Asian steppe wildcat
Asiatic wildcat
Balearic wildcat
bay wildcat
bush wildcat