Cady

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small container, often of wood or metal, for storing tea leaves ; a personal name borne by both women and men
2. An alternative spelling of caddy meaning a little box used to keep tea ; a first name given to people, and also found as a family name
3. A small box for keeping tea in, sometimes spelled differently ; a name given to a person, also used as a surname

Etymology: In its earliest English uses, the word named a person rather than a golf accessory. Borrowed from Scots "caddie", it meant a military cadet, a young man, or a ragamuffin, and also someone hired to run errands. The Scots form came from French "cadet", which carried the same sense of a younger son or junior officer, and that French word traces back through Gascon "capdet" ("captain; chief") to Late Latin "capitettum" and ultimately Latin "caput", meaning "head". So the same ancient root that gives English "capital" and "chief" also sits behind this word, which started out as a sort of junior hireling. The golfing sense is a later development. Someone hired to assist a golfer by carrying clubs and keeping track of the ball took the title of the errand-runner, and the word came to name that role. Its spelling "cady" is an obsolete variant of the same term, and the spelling "caddy", a variant of a different word for a small container, later blurred into it.

Synonyms: cadi