Word Direct Answers

caitiff

caitiff is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 4 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.Base; wicked and mean; cowardly; despicable. Arnold had sped his caitiff flight. W. Irving.
  2. 2.A captive; a prisoner. [Obs.] Avarice doth tyrannize over her caitiff and slave. Holland.
  3. 3.A wretched or unfortunate man. [Obs.] Chaucer.
  4. 4.A mean, despicable person; one whose character meanness and wickedness meet. Note: 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.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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