wildcat

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun an exploratory oil well drilled in land not known to be an oil field
  2. noun a cruelly rapacious person
  3. noun any small or medium-sized cat resembling the domestic cat and living in the wild

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.

In classic literature

Synonyms

wildcat well

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