Examples
“The justice of the peace was a twitchy little man with a stutter and a two-dollar rug laid cattywampus across his head.”
“September 25, 2009 at 6:34 am cattywampus is wun of mai faberite wers!”
Statler and Waldorf kittehs - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
“If this is mean to be reassurance, it's cattywampus" said Allie, grinning at Myra.”
“Let the customers put up with the cattywampus walls they are inflicting on the outside environment, and see how they like it.”
“Or buried paleosols with the A horizons cattywampus.”
Fault Line
“If you are going to display documents on LinkedIn profile, this is important PDF file = Lock work in place so it can't be easily modified by others MS Word shows industry jargon with underlines for misspellings can look cattywampus!”
“I resent it when my toes are going a bit cattywampus after 8 hours on the retail floor, and when my legs cramp up with the wrong shoes.”
Discussion Forum - TuDiabetes - A Community for People Touched by Diabetes
“Last Sunday we went out for dinner, last night we went out for dinner to celebrate Chase's birthday and he's working tonight, and then next Sunday is Easter, so my posts are a little cattywampus these days.”
“By a., April 4, 2010 @ 12:21 pm i’m going to start using “cattywampus” during haircut consultations.”
Build Blog » A Vocabulary List for Architects Who Want to Get Things Built
““And capsizing's always a worry, even if we were just to tumble over onto the ice here, the ship being all cattywampus the way she is.”
The Terror
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cattywampus’.
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Very Silly Words
A list of very silly sounding words, as well as words that are fun to say
badot, gardyloo, dingbat, gaffer, kine, haberdashery, forsooth, whey-faced, hoddypeak, brouhaha, widdershins, decemnovenarianize and 115 more...
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 159 more...
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words that I don't even imagine the meanings
abishag, bellibone, cattywampus, dike-jumper, eupeptic, frumious, gazabo, hackeneyed, iatronudic, kickshaw, linsey-woolsey, maelcryptovestime... and 10 more...
bourbonmots More info here:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0703/dictionary_men070903.asp Sep 13, 2011
bthorn31 meaning twisted or not straight. I am a nurse and use it when I go straighten my patients out in bed. I tell them they are all "cattywampus". I think I picked this word up when I lived in Maine. Jul 26, 2009
mollusque OED2 lists it under catawampous, which dates from 1840. Google Books shows seven examples of that spelling in the 1840s, then no more. It was replaced by "catawampus", first recorded in 1843. Judging from Google Books, "cattywampus" originates as a pronunciation guide for "catawampus" in 1901, but isn't used in its own right until the 1930s. Since then it's slowly been gaining ground on "catawampus", but hasn't caught it yet.
Perhaps this is a case of spelling capture in action, influenced by catty-corner.
By the way, let us not forget the galliwampus. Sep 10, 2008
reesetee Actually, CK, dictionaries cite both spellings. :-) And as a bonus, I found skewampus--apparently a combination of askew and cattywampus.
gangerh: Haha! It took me a second.... Sep 9, 2008
gangerh Not cattiewampus? Sep 9, 2008
catkisses It's spelled catawampus Sep 9, 2008
reesetee Haha! Great description of Wordie, bilby. Now, what will you give me for this fine word? Mar 21, 2008
bilby I've never heard it or read it. Until here of course, given that Wordie is a kind of Old Bazaar of Cairo for these kinds of terms :-) Mar 21, 2008
cattywampus I think of this word as having a similar connotation to "wabi sabi," a phrase/concept which i read about long ago in Utne, which means "the beauty of imperfection." Life is asymmetrical, out of alignment, askew, f'd up, etc. I find a certain comfort in appreciating that state of affairs. Mar 21, 2008
erinoftheyear This word isn't used nearly enough. I can't think of a better way to put a quirky spin on an otherwise bad situation than to label it "cattywampus". Aug 14, 2007
bentleyanne It just means all-gone-to-hell-screwed-up. Dec 29, 2006
dnfrd Yeah, andrew.simone's right. It means "all messed up." As in, "Well, your grandpa tried to put the knob back on the cupboard, but instead he broke the hinge and now it's all cattywampus." Dec 18, 2006
colleen well, andrew, my father was a quirky man. Dec 18, 2006
andrew.simone Interesting, I have heard it used as a synonym to askew. Dec 17, 2006
colleen I always heard it as catawampus, and despite googlings which define it as being similar to "kitty corner", as a child I was told it was a swamp monster. Dec 17, 2006