1. To provide food or entertainment.
2. To be particularly attentive or solicitous; minister: The nurses catered to my every need. The legislation catered to various special interest groups.

1. To provide food service for: a business that caters banquets and weddings.
2. To attend to the wants or needs of.

[From obsolete cater, a buyer of provisions, from Middle English catour, short for acatour, from Norman French, from acater, to buy, from Vulgar Latin *accaptāre : Latin ad-, ad- + Latin captāre, to chase; see catch.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.