cadet

name

1. A surname from French.

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from French cadet, from Gascon capdet, from Late Latin capitellum (“small head”). Attested in English from 1634. Doublet of caddie, cadeau, cadel, capital, capitellum, and caudillo.

1. A student at a military school who is training to be an officer.
2. A younger or youngest son, who would not inherit as a firstborn son would.

   “Bertram is certainly well off for a cadet of even a Baronet's family. By the time he is four or five and twenty he will have seven hundred a year, and nothing to do for it.”

3. Junior. (See also the heraldic term cadency.)

   “a cadet branch of the family”

4. A young man who makes a business of ruining girls to put them in brothels.
5. A young gentleman learning sheep farming at a station; also, any young man attached to a sheep station.
6. A participant in a cadetship.