Catering

How to spell catering

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce catering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does catering mean?

1. nounThe business or activity of providing food and drink for an event or group.
2. verbProviding what is needed or wanted by a particular person or group.

Catering in a sentence

• noun

  The wedding catering was handled by a local firm.

• verb

  The new menu is clearly catering to vegetarians and vegans.

• noun

  The conference budget included a line for catering and venue hire.

• verb

  The app keeps catering to commuters by adding faster routes.

Where does catering come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows from the verb 'cater', which English took from Anglo-Norman French in the late 1500s. The earlier English form was 'acater', meaning 'to buy provisions', and a household 'acatour' was the officer who purchased the food supplies; over time the unstressed first syllable dropped away and the noun became the verb 'cater'. Behind the French lay the Latin 'captare', 'to seize or try to grab', a frequentative of 'capere', 'to take', so the deep idea is of laying hold of supplies. From buying provisions the sense broadened to providing food and drink generally, and then figuratively to supplying whatever a person or group wants, as in 'catering to demand'. The single 't' is the spelling point to remember: it is one 't' followed by 'er', not the doubled 'tt' that the brisk pronunciation can wrongly suggest.

How the word is built

• cater (to provide food/supply)
• -ing (verbal noun / present participle suffix)