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Vinony

cad

noun

  1. disreputable person
L14716 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /kæd/

noun

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

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

    “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?”

    “I make him sound like a cad, but he’s not. Early on, when I fell seriously ill, he cared for me devotedly. He’s witty, sweet, a great cook and easy on the eyes.”

  2. A person who stands at the door of an omnibus to open and shut it, and to receive fares; a bus conductor.

    “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.”

    “I’ve fallen asleep on my step as the ’bus was going on, and almost fallen off. I have often to put up with insolence from vulgar fellows, who think it fun to chaff a cad, as they call it.”

  3. An idle hanger-on about innyards.

verb

Etymology: Uncertain. Ferguson (1875) thought this to be of Celtic origin; possibly from a Cumbric equivalent to Welsh cydio (“to join, couple”).

  1. to mat or felt together