wildcat
Part of speech: adj
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: engineering
firearms
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
Etymology: From Middle English wyld cat, wylde cat (in the plural as wild cattes, wylde catis, wyle cattes), equivalent to wild + cat. Cognate with Middle Low German wiltkatte, German Wildkatze, Swedish vildkatt.
Its adjectival senses were originally American and derived from the "wildcat banks" of Michigan, following its elevation to statehood in 1837. Two laws—one easing the requirements for establishing a new bank and another occasioned by the Panic of 1837 that removed the need for payment in specie—led to the creation and collapse of around 50 banks within two years. The term is apocryphally derived from a wildcat supposedly featured on the currency printed by one of these banks, but more probably derived from the remote locations "where the wildcats roamed" chosen by these banks to avoid oversight and minimize redemption of notes.
Base: wild
Inflected forms:
form: wild-cat
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: wild cat
pos: adj
tags: alternative
form: wildcats
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wildcatting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wildcatted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: wildcatted
pos: verb
tags: past
form: wild-cat
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: wild cat
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Of or concerning businesses operating outside standard or legitimate practice, especially
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
not-comparable
usually
examples: Then the development of the home country was neglected for some wildcat idea of bringing up the backward people of other lands.
[…] the Tank being a small arena theatre located out between a traffic analysis firm and a wildcat transistor outfit that hadn't been there last year and wouldn't be this coming but meanwhile was underselling even the Japanese and hauling in loot by the steamshovelful.
gloss: Of or concerning businesses operating outside standard or legitimate practice, especially:
pos: adj
tags: dated
derogatory
not-comparable
usually
gloss: Of or concerning businesses operating outside standard or legitimate practice, especially:
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
not-comparable
usually
gloss: Of or concerning businesses operating outside standard or legitimate practice, especially:
pos: adj
tags: derogatory
not-comparable
usually
gloss: Of or concerning customized or hand-made cartridges.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
gloss: Unauthorized by the proper authorities.
pos: adj
tags: not-comparable
examples: 2003 June 15, CNN
Jewish settlers have also been active putting up five new wildcat outposts on hilltops in the West Bank to try to thwart their Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
gloss: To drill for oil in an area where no oil has been found before.
pos: verb
examples: You'd have to be very rich or very desperate to go wildcatting that far east.
His pitch was that fracking had transformed the production of gas from a hit-or-miss proposition to one that operated with an on and off switch. It was manufacturing, not wildcatting.
Derived words: semiwildcat
wildcat bank
wildcat banking
wildcat currency
wildcat money
wildcat note
wildcat strike
Translations: