cater

cater vb Cater, purvey, pander are comparable when they mean to furnish with what satisfies the appetite or desires.

Cater basically implies the provision of what is needed in the way of food and drink

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he that doth the ravens feed, yea, providently caters for the sparrow— Shak.

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The term especially implies provision of food and drink ready for the table

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a firm that caters for dinners, weddings, and receptions

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In extended use cater often implies the provision of something that appeals to a specific appetite

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catering to the national taste and vanity— Thackeray

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Often, especially when followed by to, the term implies a certain subserviency (as to popular standards or uncultivated tastes)

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too many movies, novels, and comic books do cater to an appetite for violence— Sisk

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cater to the public demand for the sensational

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Purvey usually suggests the provision of food but sometimes of such other material necessities as lodgings and clothes. In contrast with cater, however, it suggests service as a source of supply, either as an agent through whom what is wanted may be found or as a merchant who sells the needed articles

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merchants who purveyed to the troops during the Seven Years' War

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In extended use, especially when followed by for, purvey implies the provision of whatever is needed to satisfy, delight, or indulge

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the function of the eye is now merely ministerial; it merely purveys for the ear— Lanier

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Pander, which basically means to act as a procurer or as a go-between in an illicit amour, in its frequent extended use may imply a purveying of something which will gratify desires and passions that are degrading or base

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pander to depraved appetites

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pander to morbid tendencies

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or may connote mere servile truckling

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denounced legislative pandering to special interests— Timey institutions which pandered to the factory workers . . . —a movie house, a quick-lunch wagon— F. S. Fitzgerald

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or even no more than a deferring to or a reasonable indulgence of tastes

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choose a plan to suit your type of land and to pander to your own particular tastes— Sydney Bulletin

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such things, as being traditional, may pander to your sense of the great past. Histrionically, too, they are good— Beerbohm

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Analogous words: *furnish, equip, appoint, accouter: pamper, *indulge, humor: *satisfy, content