[f. CATER sb.1]
1. intr. To act as ‘cater,’ caterer, or purveyor of provisions; to provide a supply of food for.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. iii. 44. He that doth the Rauens feede, Yea prouidently caters for the Sparrow.
1713. Addison, Guardian, No. 139, ¶ 2. Androcles … lived many days in this frightful solitude, the lion catering for him with great assiduity.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xxxii. You were wont to love delicate fare—behold how I have catered for you.
1853. Kingsley, Hypatia, I. xiv. 301. In order to cater for both.
b. absol. To buy or provide food.
1822. Mair, Lat. Dict., Obsōno, to cater or buy in victuals.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, III. i. 29. See if I don’t cater judiciously.
c. trans.
a. 1634. Randolph, Poems (1638), 4. Noe widdowes curse caters a dish of mine.
a. 1643. W. Cartwright, Siege, II. ii. And cater spiders for the queasie creature When it refuseth comfits.
1866. Neale, Seq. & Hymns, 190. He … Catered the poorest of food.
2. transf. and fig. To occupy oneself in procuring or providing (requisites, things desired, etc.) for.
1650. W. Fenner, Christ’s Alarm, 10. To cater for heaven, to bring in custome for the Kingdome of God.
1700. Congreve, Way of World, III. v. What! you are … catering (says he) or ferreting for some disbanded officer.
1789. Burns, Let. R. Ainslie, 6 Jan. I am still catering for Johnson’s publication.
1838–9. Hallam, Hist. Lit., IV. vi. § 50. He rarely caters for the populace of the theatre by such indecencies as they must understand.
1872. Minto, Eng. Lit., Introd. 25. He does not cater for the pleasure of his jurors.
b. occasionally const. to. [Cf. pander to.]
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sk. Bk. (1872), 134. Catering to the national taste and vanity.
1860. Kingsley, Misc., II. 102. Nine years afterwards we find him … catering to the low tastes of James I.
1864. Sat. Rev., 10 Dec., 711/1. Machinery for catering to the wants of the profane and the dissolute.
