cater
Americanverb (used without object)
-
caters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
catered,
past participle, past
-
catering
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
caters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
catered,
past participle, past
-
catering
present participle
verb
-
(intr; foll by for or to) to provide what is required or desired (for)
to cater for a need
cater to your tastes
-
to provide food, services, etc (for)
we cater for parties
to cater a banquet
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
catersimple
-
caterssimple
-
have cateredperfect
-
has cateredperfect
-
am cateringprogressive
-
are cateringprogressive
-
is cateringprogressive
-
have been cateringperfect progressive
-
has been cateringperfect progressive
Past
-
cateredsimple
-
had cateredperfect
-
was cateringprogressive
-
were cateringprogressive
-
had been cateringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cater
First recorded in 1350–1400; verb use of obsolete cater, Middle English catour, variant of acatour “buyer,” from Anglo-French, from acat(er) “to buy” ( see cate) + -our -or 2
Explanation
To cater means to supply food for meetings or celebrations. If you're having a big barbecue party but would rather hang out with your friends than grill, you could pay someone to cater it. In Middle English, the food supply in a big household was known as the cates, and so to cater meant keeping the pantry full. These days, caterers don't do pantries. They cook food for many different households or offices. Cater has also come to mean "giving what is desired or needed." You might cater to your grandfather by bringing him tea, reading to him, and laughing at his bad jokes.
Vocabulary lists containing cater
Talk Like Shakespeare Day, List 2
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Mardi Gras: Food
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
So we plan to cater a barbecue buffet from Palmetto Pig, one of our favorite restaurants, instead.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
“All of our politicians and parties cater towards old people, which is not a bad thing,” said Phoebe Dolan, 28, co-director and one of its founding members.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2026
Whether he’s performing in Armenia, Mexico City, Paris or London, the comedian knows how to cater his act to the crowd — it’s never the same routine.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
After years of investing their personal capital together, Anderson and Fogelsong launched Friends & Family Capital in 2020, betting they could build a venture firm that would cater to startups’ strategic financial needs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
“I cater birthdays and bat mitzvahs,” she says.
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
Yet it doesn’t seem a coincidence to me that one newer show that caters to Generation Z, “Adults,” has a group of friends living rent-free in one of the character’s childhood home.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026
It’s a niche manufacturing business that caters to enterprising chefs and restaurateurs who are testing a concept or hitting the road for music festivals, farmers markets or a meal break at offices.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
Max spent £20,000 from his redundancy package buying and converting a horsebox trailer into a pizza truck, which now caters for weddings, parties and pop-ups.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
While Anthropic gets almost all of its revenue from corporate customers and is the market-share leader in that area, OpenAI caters to a larger swath of users.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
My mother's parents were part of the small merchant class that caters to officials, Peacekeepers, and the occasional Seam customer.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
Vroman’s catered to various clientele and communities, from traveling dignitaries to academics and leisure readers on vacation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026
Clients want to customize AI models and control their own data, and Palantir has catered to these needs.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
In Auckland, the Hāngī Master, Rewi Spraggon, honors his ancestors with his traditional hāngī catered cooking.
From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2026
It might not be the easiest on the eye against strong defences but it feels catered to tournament football, providing England a base upon which they dominate the ball, while taking calculated risks.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
So his parents took him out of public school and, at the beginning of seventh grade, sent him to Lakeside, a private school that catered to Seattle’s elite families.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
Palmetto Pig charges $18 plus tax per person for catering, a huge discount compared with the $80 per person the Knot estimates the average couple spends on catering.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 13, 2026
Uber expects the catering platform, with average orders exceeding $400, to boost its profit margins.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
For years, Khalwinder Singh Bhengura lived an unassuming life in Arlington, Texas, where the 69-year-old Indian immigrant works a graveyard shift preparing passenger meals for an airline catering company.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
Nats says the latest failure at Prestwick was different - Prestwick in Ayrshire looks after traffic across northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, catering for about 42% of the UK's air traffic.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026
Mama leaves the kitchen and heads toward the formal dining room, where her catering orders are waiting to be packed and labeled.
From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
