the.com/wildcat
A small fierce feline, and also any business too reckless to behave like one.
means A wild member of the cat family, or by extension anything unauthorized, risky, or done without official sanction.
from Old English roots for an untamed cat; by the 1800s American oil and banking borrowed the word for ventures as unpredictable and clawed as the animal.
Oil huntingWildcatters drill speculative wells where no oil is proven.
Wildcat strikeA walkout staged without union approval.
Banking ghost1830s wildcat banks issued cash backed by nothing.