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caitiff.

A base or despicable person; a wretch.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkeɪtɪf/

  1. A base or despicable person; a wretch.

  2. A captive or prisoner, particularly a galley slave.

    obsolete

  3. A villain, a coward or wretch.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle English caitif, from Anglo-Norman caitif (“captive”), akin to Old French chaitif (French chétif) and Middle Dutch keytyf, from a Vulgar Latin *cactīvus alteration via Gaulish influence from Latin captīvus (“captive”); compare Italian cattivo (“bad, wicked”). Doublet of captive.

adj/ˈkeɪtɪf/

  1. Especially despicable; cowardly

Where this word comes from

From Middle English caitif, from Anglo-Norman caitif (“captive”), akin to Old French chaitif (French chétif) and Middle Dutch keytyf, from a Vulgar Latin *cactīvus alteration via Gaulish influence from Latin captīvus (“captive”); compare Italian cattivo (“bad, wicked”). Doublet of captive.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.