cad

Etymology

Short for caddie, from Scots, from French cadet, from dialectal capdet (“chief, captain”), from Latin capitellum, diminutive of caput (“head”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kæd/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æd

Noun

cad (plural cads)

1. A low-bred, presuming person; a mean, vulgar fellow, especially one that cannot be trusted with a lady.^[1]

   Synonyms: villain, dog, rascal, bounder

   • 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

     The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. […] Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?

2. (archaic) A person who stands at the door of an omnibus to open and shut it, and to receive fares; a bus conductor.
   • c. 1835, Charles Dickens, "Omnibuses" (in Sketches by Boz)

     We will back the machine in which we make our daily peregrination from the top of Oxford-street to the city, against any buss on the road, whether it be for the gaudiness of its exterior, the perfect simplicity of its interior, or the native coolness of its cad.

3. (UK, Ireland, obsolete, slang) An idle hanger-on about innyards.

See also

• no way to treat a lady

References

Anagrams

• ACD, ADC, CDA, D.Ac., DAC, DAc, DAc., DCA

Alternative forms

• cadu

Etymology

From Late Latin cadeō, cadēre, from Latin cadō, cadĕre. Compare Daco-Romanian cad, cădea.

Verb

cad first-singular present indicative (third-person singular present indicative cadi or cade, past participle cãdzutã)

1. to fall

Alternative forms

• gad

Etymology

Clipping of cad é, from early modern caidhe (“what is?”) from Old Irish cote (“what is the nature of? of what kind is?”),^[1][2] due to analogy with copular phrases like is é, an é.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kad̪ˠ/

Pronoun

cad

1. (interrogative) what

   Synonyms: cad é, céard

2. (Munster) (interrogative) where

   Cad as duit? ― Where are you from?

References

Further reading

• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1904) “cad”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 1st edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 103
• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “cad”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kad/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ad

Verb

cad

1. inflection of cădea:
   1. first-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. third-person plural present indicative

Etymology

From Proto-Cushitic *ʕad-.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ʕad̪/

Noun

cad ?

1. white

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kaːd/
• Rhymes: -aːd

Etymology 1

From Middle Welsh kad, kat, from Old Welsh cat, from Proto-Brythonic *kad (“battle”), from Proto-Celtic *katus (compare Old Irish cath), from Proto-Indo-European *kéh₃tus (“fight”).

Etymology 2

Mutation