adjective Base; wicked and mean; cowardly; despicable.
noun obsolete A captive; a prisoner.
noun obsolete A wretched or unfortunate man.
noun A mean, despicable person; one whose character meanness and wickedness meet.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun A base or despicable person; a wretch
noun obsolete a captive or prisoner, particularly a galley slave
noun archaic a villain, a coward or wretch
adjective Especially despicable; cowardly
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
adjective despicably mean and cowardly
noun a cowardly and despicable person
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Middle English caitif, from Norman French, from Latin captīvus, prisoner; see captive.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Old French caitif ("captive"), a variant of chaitif (French chétif), from a Proto-Romance alteration of Latin captivus ("captive"); compare Italian cattivo ("bad, wicked").
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Examples
The "caitiff" in these chronicles of when knighthood was in flower is invariably hanged from "the highest battlement" -- the second highest would not do at all; or else he is thrown into "the deepest dungeon of the castle" -- the second deepest dungeon was never known to be used on these occasions.
A half-bred, half-acting, half-thinking, half-daring caitiff, whose poorest thoughts — and those which deserve that name must be poor indeed — are not the produce of his own understanding.
A voice from the ruins, like that of a sullen echo from the grave, answered, ‘Itat Schreckenwald!’ and the caitiff issued from his place of concealment, and stood before me with that singular indifference to danger which he unites to his atrocity of character.
But my worst acts are but merry malice: I have no relish for the bloody trade, and abhor to see or hear of its being acted even on the meanest caitiff.
"Captain Thomas J. C. Martyn . . . was asked to give his opinion on recent despatches from Berlin which stated that Count Manfred von Richthofen, celebrated German flyer, was not shot in the air but killed by caitiff riflemen after he had made a safe landing behind the British lines."
The word has undergone a change and is now an adjective meaning
2. base, wicked, mean, cowardly, despicable.
"The deep-felt conviction of men that slavery breaks down the moral character...speaks out with...distinctness in the change of meaning which caitiff has undergone signifying as it now does, one of a base, abject disposition, while there was a time when it had nothing of this in it."
reesetee commented on the word caitiff
cowardly, despicable
February 23, 2007
bilby commented on the word caitiff
"Captain Thomas J. C. Martyn . . . was asked to give his opinion on recent despatches from Berlin which stated that Count Manfred von Richthofen, celebrated German flyer, was not shot in the air but killed by caitiff riflemen after he had made a safe landing behind the British lines."
- 'Friendly Enemies', Time.
December 4, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word caitiff
Hot damn!! I knew it!!
December 4, 2008
hernesheir commented on the word caitiff
The arch. and obs. meaning of the noun caitiff was
1. captive, prisoner, a wretched man.
The word has undergone a change and is now an adjective meaning
2. base, wicked, mean, cowardly, despicable.
"The deep-felt conviction of men that slavery breaks down the moral character...speaks out with...distinctness in the change of meaning which caitiff has undergone signifying as it now does, one of a base, abject disposition, while there was a time when it had nothing of this in it."
--Trench.
December 30, 2008
hernesheir commented on the word caitiff
"Such miserable caitiffs, that shall there
Rebukes of vengeance, for transgressions bear."
John Bunyan (1628-1688), From Mount Ebal
September 20, 2009