Cadet

How to spell cadet

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cadet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cadet mean?

1. nounA young person training to become an officer in the armed forces or police.

Cadet in a sentence

• The young cadet saluted the visiting general on the parade ground.

• Every cadet at the academy must complete a rigorous fitness test.

Where does cadet come from?

Language of origin: French

The word came into English in the 1600s from French cadet, meaning a younger son or younger brother. The French form traces back through the dialect of Gascony, where capdet described a junior member of a noble family, and that in turn rests on the Late Latin capitellum, a diminutive of caput, the ordinary Latin word for 'head'. The literal sense was therefore something like 'little head' or 'lesser chief', a fitting label for the younger son who ranked below the heir. Because younger sons of the gentry often entered the army to make their way, cadet narrowed over time to mean a young trainee preparing for a military or police career. The same caput root sits behind familiar English words such as 'captain' and 'capital', and remembering that single -d- in the middle, with no doubling, is the main thing to fix in writing.

How the word is built

• cadet (from French, ultimately from Latin capitellum: little head/chief, diminutive of caput 'head')