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Catawampus is also commonly pronounced more like “cattywampus,” probably due to the influence of words with such variants like cater-corned as catty-cornered and kitty-cornered. Despite what you may be thinking, catawampus has nothing to do with cats.

If catawampus comes in part from cater-cornered, that cater- is from the French quatre (and before, Latin quattor), meaning “four.” Here’s a word connection you can bank on: the English word quarter is closely related to the Latin quattor.

Catawampus has no lexical relation to the Wampus Cat, a cougar-like beast connected to Appalachian folklore that has served as an inspiration for a magical animal of the same name in the world of Harry Potter.