Word of the Week Wednesday: catawampus
December 28, 2011 1 Comment
This Wednesday’s Word of the Week is: catawampus.
Catawampus is an adjective meaning askew, off-center or diagonally oriented.
It’s related to the word cater-cornered but it sounds more like some backwoods, mythical beast like a jackalope or a dropbear.
This connection is probably due to my half-remembering the legend of the Wampus-cat.
While the property of being askew or not quite orthogonal is not uninteresting in itself, I do like the word more as a name for a cryptid.
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On Language 
I’ve heard people say the word, but I always thought it was some made-up phrase. I didn’t know it had a real meaning!