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say it: WAHYLD-kat
wildcat is a noun and adjective meaning "an exploratory oil well drilled in land not known to be an oil field". It carries 6 recorded senses.
any small or medium-sized cat resembling the domestic cat and living in the wild
outside the bounds of legitimate or ethical business practices
“wildcat currency issued by irresponsible banks”
“wildcat stock speculation”
“a wildcat airline”
“wildcat life insurance schemes”
without official authorization
“an unauthorized strike”
“wildcat work stoppage”
(of a mine or oil well) drilled speculatively in an area not known to be productive
“drilling there would be strictly a wildcat operation”
“a wildcat mine”
“wildcat drilling”
“wildcat wells”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for wildcat come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.