Word of the Week

cat·​ty·​wam·​pus

The first time I heard the word cattywampus, nearly three years ago, I fell in love. I had no idea what the word meant, but when I heard it in the sentence, I was able to fairly accurately guess. “They sat cattywampus around the room, and I felt there was no sense of order.” It basically means askew, awry, or out of order.

I wanted to learn more about this word, so that I could begin to incorporate it into sentences. But how? How do we use a new word both accurately and with confidence? It takes practice. I began looking up “cattywampus” in sentences online by googling “cattywampus in a sentence”.

"The lamp post was all cattywampus after the storm."

"The stitches on the quilt were a bit cattywampus, but the quilt still looked cozy."

"She often layers her clothes a bit cattywampus; it's her style."

Useless Etymology says “…the first part, “catty,” may hark back to a now-obsolete meaning of the word “cater,” which means “to set or move diagonally” (in the sense of catty-corner, which was originally “cater-corner” and perhaps changed spelling as a result of developments in American accents). The first part might also be related to the Greek prefix kata-, which can suggest “downward” or “toward,” among other meanings.

The second part’s origin is unclear, but may be from the Scottish slang term wampish, which meant “to wriggle or twist about.”

The first few times I tried using this new word, at least one person asked what I was talking about, or what the word meant. It seemed I wasn’t the only person to not know the word. I started writing it in sentences, practicing incorporating “cattywampus” in every one, then I read them aloud to feel the word on my tongue. After a while, I started feeling that “cattywampus” was familiar to me.

When we learn something new, it’s not often easy. It takes practice. Expanding our vocabulary is a wonderful thing to do. It can be fun and it’s good for our brains. Join us each week, on Wednesdays, as we bring a new word to the blog for you to add to your vocabulary. (Want a bonus word? Try kerfuffle. It’s a favorite of one of our volunteers and it means a disturbance. TC