wildcat
To drill for oil in an area where no oil has been found beforeTo drill for oil in an area where no oil has been found before.
Recorded US: Dvortygirl, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Meaning
1 sensesTo drill for oil in an area where no oil has been found before.
You'd have to be very rich or very desperate to go wildcatting that far east.
Origin
From Middle English wyld cat, wylde cat (in the plural as wild cattes, wylde catis, wyle cFrom 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.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
wildcats, wildcatting, wildcatted, wildcattedirregular
| Base form | wildcat · to wildcat |
|---|---|
| 3rd person singular | wildcats |
| Present participle | wildcatting |
| Past simple | wildcatted |
| Past participle | wildcatted |
Tenses
wildcat · wildcatted · will wildcat · have wildcattedPoint at a form to see it in a sentence.Tap a form to see it in a sentence.
Word family
4 related wordsLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.