cad [L18th] This is a dated term to describe a man who behaves dishonourably towards a woman, and appears to have arisen at the universities as a colloquial insult for a ‘man of low, vulgar manners’. It may have originated at Oxford in a contemptuous application to townsmen in the ‘town-and-gown’ rivalry. Cad, however, also once referred to any passenger picked up by the driver of a horse-drawn coach for his personal profit. It is an abbreviation of Scottish caddie or its more standard form cadet. This term for a younger son comes from French Gascon dialect capdet ‘little head’, hence ‘junior’, from Latin caput ‘head’. Caddie [M17th] came to be used in Scotland for a casual labourer or odd-job man [M18th] before being used for the person who carries someone’s golf clubs [M19th].