Meaning & use
cater
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Meanings
verbtransitive or intransitive
To provide food and drink for an event or a group of people, usually as a business.
Grammar: Can take an object: cater a wedding, or stand alone: they cater for parties.
Patterns
- cater an event
- cater for someone
- cater for an event
A local bakery will cater the office party.
We hired a team to cater our daughter's wedding.
She runs a small company that caters for weddings and funerals.
verbintransitive
To provide what a certain group of people needs, wants or enjoys.
Grammar: Followed by to or for: cater to families, not cater families.
Patterns
- cater to someone
- cater for someone
- cater to something
The hotel caters to travelers on a budget.
This program caters for students of all abilities.
The menu caters to vegetarians as well as meat eaters.
verbintransitivedisapproving
To satisfy a desire or taste, often one that is not admirable.
Grammar: Followed by to and a noun like fears or taste: cater to his vanity.
Patterns
- cater to something
The tabloid caters to people's love of gossip.
She refused to cater to his vanity.
Some advertisers cater to fear.
Word forms
| third person singular | caters |
|---|---|
| past tense | catered |
| past participle | catered |
| -ing form | catering |
Common combinations
- cater to
- The cafe caters to remote workers who need quiet space.
- cater for
- The school caters for children with special needs.
- cater an event
- They cater events of up to two hundred guests.
- cater to every taste
- The buffet caters to every taste.
- cater to demand
- Shops cater to demand for local produce.
- cater a wedding
- My uncle caters weddings in the summer.
Synonyms and how they differ
- serve
- Serve is broader and simpler, and it covers handing out food or helping customers without suggesting a business arrangement.
- provide for
- Provide for is more neutral and can mean supporting someone financially, whereas cater suggests meeting needs or preferences.
- supply
- Supply emphasizes delivering goods, while cater more often refers to food or to adjusting what you offer to a group.
- pander to
- Pander to is always negative, because it implies satisfying bad taste or weakness, while cater to can be neutral.
Opposites
Word family
- caterer noun
- a person or business that supplies food for events
- catering noun
- the business of providing food and drink
- self-catering adjective
- describing a holiday place where guests prepare their own meals
- cater-cornered adjective
- positioned diagonally, unrelated to food in meaning
Commonly confused: cater or cator? cater or catered to / catered for?
cater vs cator
Cator is not a standard English word, so the correct spelling is cater.
cater vs catered to / catered for
In British English cater for is common, while American English prefers cater to for meeting people's needs.
Practice
Which sentence correctly uses cater with a group of customers?
Choose one answer.
In the sense of providing what a group wants, cater is followed by to (or for in British usage). It cannot take a direct object here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cater”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.