homophene

Pronounced: HAHM-uh-feen, noun

Notes: I recognized the parts of our word, but I didn’t know what it meant

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Yesterday’s word

The word catawampus means “askew; awry; cater-cornered”

First usage

Our word came into English in the mid-1800s

Background / Comments

When I was growing up, things that were diagonal from each other were called “kitty-corner” or “kitty-cornered”. This was, no doubt, was changed by people from “catercorner” (also cater-corner), with the “cat” suggesting “kitty”. It is thought that our word came from “catercorner”. In the Middle Ages, the French word for “four” could be spelled “quatre” or “catre” — it came into English as “cater”, and was used to refer to a die with four pips. If one connects the four spots, it makes an “X”, which is probably why “cater” developed the meaning of “diagonally”. Anyway, it appears that “catercorner” is the original word for things being diagonal, and other words (catercornered, catawampus, kitty-corner, kitty-cornered etc) came from that.