Sc. Also 7 caudie, 8 cawdie, cady, caddee, 8–9 caddy. [ad. F. cadet: see CADET and CADEE.]
† 1. = CADEE, CADET 2, q.v. Also attrib.
1634–46. Row, Hist. Kirk (1842), 462. Ane young gentleman latelie come from France, pransing … with his short skarlet cloake and his long caudie rapier.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 53. Commissions are dear Yet I’ll buy him one this year; For he shall serve no longer a cadie.
a. 1776. Ballad, in Herd, Coll., II. 170 (Jam.). There was Wattie the muirland laddie … With sword by his side like a cadie.
2. A lad or man who waits about on the look-out for chance employment as a messenger, errand-boy, errand-porter, chair-man, odd-job-man, etc.; spec. a member of a corps of commissionaires in Edinburgh in the 18th c. (See also quot. 1883.)
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. fr. N. of Scotl., ii. (1754), I. 26. The Cawdys, a very useful Black-Guard, who attend… publick Places to go of Errands; and though they are Wretches, that in Rags lye upon the Stairs, and in the Streets at Night, yet are they often considerably trusted … This Corps has a kind of Captain … presiding over them, whom they call the Constable of the Cawdys.
a. 1774. Fergusson, Compl. Plainstanes. A cadie wi his lantern.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxi. A tattered cadie, or errand-porter, whom David Deans had jostled.
c. 1817. Hogg, Tales & Sk., V. 65. A caddy came with a large parcel to Mrs. Logan’s house.
a. 1859. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., V. 209. Every Scotchman, from the peer to the cadie.
1883. Wesleyan-Methodist Mag., 546/1. The ‘caddies’—sturdy women with creels on their backs, who acted as porters, struggled for the customer.
b. A golf-player’s attendant who carries his clubs (generally a boy or lad).
1857. Chambers’ Inform. People, II. 696/2.
1864. Bookseller, 31 Oct., 662. Twenty golfers, with their attendant caddies scattered over the link.
1883. Standard, 16 Nov., 5/2. The ‘caddy’ who carries the clubs probably possesses theoretical knowledge in the greatest perfection.
3. Young fellow, lad. (ludicrous or familiar.)
1786. Burns, Earnest Cry, xx. Gie him’t het, my hearty cocks, E’en cow the caddie [C. J. Fox].
1788–1813. E. Picken, Misc. Poems, I. 186 (Jam.). A’ ye canty cheerie caddies.
