Cads

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kædz/

Definitions

1. A term for men who engage in dishonorable or scornful behavior, particularly in romantic contexts
2. individuals known for their unscrupulous and deceitful actions
3. characters often depicted as charming rogues who exploit others’ emotions

Etymology: Cads began life as a shortened form of "caddie," the word for a person who runs errands or carries things for someone else. Its ancestry is traced to "caput," the Latin for "head," through a diminutive form, though the chain of borrowing between Latin and English is not fully settled. The sense of a low, ungentlemanly fellow arrived later, and it is a fair guess that the image of a servant doing menial work shaped the insult. Some scholars have looked further afield. The Scottish-born philologist Ferguson, writing in 1875, suggested a Celtic origin, proposing a link to the Welsh "cydio," meaning "to join" or "couple." That idea has not been widely accepted, so the Latin-diminutive and caddie route remains the more commonly cited account.

Synonyms: scoundrels, rogues, bounders, rascals, miscreants

Antonyms: gentlemen, heroes, upstanding individuals, saints, good people