cad

cad

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Caddo.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Caddo terms

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

• IPA^(key): /kæd/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æd

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?

   • 2025 February 28, Laura Esther Wolfson, “Rules for Staying Close to Exes”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     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. (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.

   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:

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

• no way to treat a lady

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

• cadu

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

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

1. to fall

• cãdeari/cãdeare
• cãderi
• cãdzut
• cãdzui
• scad

• gad

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.

• IPA^(key): /kad̪ˠ/, /kəd̪ˠ/^[3]

cad

1. (interrogative) what

   Synonyms: cad é, céard

2. (Munster) (interrogative) where

   Cad as duit? ― Where are you from?

• cad as duit? (“where are you from?”)
• cad chuige (“why”)
• cad ina thaobh (“why”)

• 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

• IPA^(key): /kad/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ad

cad

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

From Proto-Somaloid *ʕaz-, from Proto-Cushitic *ʕaz- (“white”).

Cognate with Jiiddu ayi, Aweer adawa (“white clouds”), Girirra ed, Arbore ezzi, Daasanach eđ, El Molo ewe, Oromo adii, Khonso at, Afar qado.

• IPA^(key): /ʕad̪/

cad m

1. white
2. clear

• De Larajasse, E. (1897). Somali-English and English-Somali dictionary (p. 3). ABT-ADA.

• IPA^(key): /kaːd/
• Rhymes: -aːd

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”).

cad f (plural cadau or cadoedd)

1. battle, army

• Cadan
• cadfran (“rook”)
• Cadwaladr
• cadoediad (“ceasefire”)

• caed, cafwyd

cad

1. impersonal preterite of cael