Also 5 kod, 5–7 cad. [Origin and part of speech unknown. In cade lamb, ‘cade’ may be an adj. with some such sense as ‘cast’ or ‘domestic, tame,’ or a sb. used attrib. as in pet-lamb: in the former case ‘cade’ as a sb. would be short for ‘cade-lamb’; in the latter, ‘cade-lamb’ might be an expansion.
(As Cotgrave gives an alleged F. ‘cadel a castling, a starveling, one that hath need much of cockering and pampering,’ a sense not unlike Eng. ‘pet,’ it has been suggested that cade-lamb was perh. for an earlier *cadel-lamb. But this is historically impossible. M. Paul Meyer says Cotgrave’s word is not Fr., but app. the 16th-c. Languedocien cadel ‘little dog,’ and his explanation erroneous. The corresp. OF. word was chael, cheel, which has no likeness to the ME. kod, cad, even if the sense suited. Wedgwood compares Da. kaad wanton, petulant, sportive:—ON. kát-r merry, cheerful: but cade is not at all Sc., and apparently not properly northern, since Ray, 1691, explains the ‘North-Country words’ pet, pet-lamb as ‘a cade-lamb.’)]
1. as adj. or in comb. Of the young of animals, esp. lambs and colts: Cast or left by the mother and brought up by hand, as a domestic pet.
c. 1475. Pict. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 749. Hic ricus, a kodlomb.
1551. Will of Jane Lovet (Somerset Ho.). Three Cade lambes that go abowte the house.
1678. Littleton, Dict., in Cath. Angl., 50. A cade lamb, agnus domesticus, domi eductus.
1681. Worlidge, Dict. Rust. (E. D. S.), A cosset lamb or colt, or cade lamb or colt, that is a lamb or colt fallen and brought up by hand.
1698. F. B., Modest Censure, 14. They would have all Writers be very sweet upon their Opponents, and shew themselves as mild and gentle as cade Lambs.
1792. in Phil. Trans., LXXXII. 366. We do not wean our cade-lambs till June.
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, x. 95. It’s ill bringing up a cade lamb.
1880. J. F. Davies, in Academy, 24 Dec., 456.
2. as sb. a. A pet lamb.
c. 1450. Nominale, in Wr.-Wülcker, 698. Hec agna, a new lame; hec cenaria, a cad; kec berbex, a weder.
1483. Cath. Angl., 50. A Cade, dome(s)tica vel domesticus, vt ouis vel auis domestica.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter iii. 18. He gave his poor godson a lamb for a cade.
1662. Cokaine, Ovid, 60.
| Pritty Spinella, you steer an other Course, | |
| Are tame enough, as Gentle as a Cad. |
1831. Howitt, Seasons, 73. Others [lambs] … are reared generally by the assistance of a tea-pot with cow’s milk, and are called cades or pets.
b. The foal of a horse brought up by hand.
1617. Markham, Caval., II. 109. Such horses as we call Cades, which are those that neuer suck their dams, but vpon their first foaling are put up into a house.
c. A spoiled or petted child. (var. dial.)
1877. Peacock, N. W. Linc. Gloss., Cade, a child which is babyish in its manner.
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk., s.v., ‘E’s a reg’lar cade’ said of a spoiled child.
3. Of fruit: Fallen, cast. [rare.]
1876. Miss Broughton, Joan, III. 184. Austine is collecting the little cade cherries.
