I am not too sure of the spelling either, but another use for the word according to my grandmother, God rest her, was for a dwelling or building on a diagonal direction across an intersection of two streets. One house on the northwest corner, and the other on the south east corner: one is catawampus from the other. I've heard it a nursing homes I visit in the same manner, so at least in the midwest, it must have been a familiar term among some of a generation or two past.

----please, draw me a sheep----