wildcat (wildkat)

and a. I. n. 1. A cat of the original feral stock from which have descended some varieties of the domestic cat; the European Felis cat us, living in a state of nature, not artificially modified in any way. Hence2. One of various species of either of the genera wildcat Felis and Lynx; especially, in North America, the bay lynx (L. rufus ) and Canada lynx ( L. ca nadensis), and sometimes the cougar ( F. concolor). See cat1, and cuts under cougar and lynx. II. a. Wild; reckle ; haphazard: applied especially to unsound busine enterprises: as, wildcat banking (see below); wildcat currency (currency ncy i ued by a wildcat bank); scheme (a reckle , unstable venture); wildcat bank); a wildcat stock (stock of some wildcat or unsound company or organization). [Colloq., U. S.] The first night of our journey was spent at Ashford, in Connecticut, where we arrived late in the evening; and here the bother of wild - cat currency, as it was afterward called, was forced upon our attention. Josiah Quincy , Figures of the Past, p. 196. The present system, though an immense improvement in every respect on the heterogeneous old breed of State and wild - cat banks that wrought ruin in 1836 and 1857, is neverthele of the same dangerous character. N. A. Rev. , CXLI. 199. Wildcat banking, a name given, especially in the western United States, to the operations of organizations or individuals who, under the loose State banking-laws which prevailed before the pa age of the National Bank Act of 1863, i ued large amounts of bank-notes though po e ing little or no capital. The wild -cat banking which devastated the Ohio States between 1837 and 1860, and miseducated the people of those States until they thought irredeemable government i ues an unhoped-for ble ing, never could have existed if Story's opinion had been law. W. G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson, p. 363. Wildcat engine. See engine.