It's the word of the day for May 12th.

Today's word is Caddy Corner, also pronounced Kitty Corner.

It's a variant spelling of Kitty Corner spelled as two words,

K-I-T-T-Y-C-O-R-N-E-R. This variant is spelled

C-A-T-E-R, C-O-R-N-E-R, spelled as entirely one word.

Caddy Corner is an adverb or adjective used to describe two things that are located across from each other

on opposite corners. Here's the word used in a sentence from NBC News. Positioned on balconies,

catty corner from each other, Tom Brady completed a pass across Bourbon Street to Rob Gronkowski,

proving they've still got it. G Granc promptly spiked the football on the

fan-filled street below. Catty Corner, with a sea, gets its first element from the middle

French noun, chth, meaning four, which English speakers modified to cater with a C, and applied to the four-dotted side of a die, a side important

in several winning combinations in dice games. Perhaps because the four spots on a die can

suggest an X, Catter eventually came to be used dialectically as a verb meaning to place, move, or cut across diagonally.

Catter was later combined with corner to form catticorner, and it described things positioned

diagonally from each other. In one early usage from an 1825 magazine article, the author marvels at an ancient Roman fresco painting

in which a luxurious table is represented as groaning under, among other choice dishes,

four peacocks with their tails set, Caddy Corner. Eventually, the Variant's Kitty Corner and

Caddy Corner, which are now the more common forms of this term, developed.

Despite all appearances, these terms bear no etymological relation to our feline friends.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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