Cadet

//kəˈdɛt// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A student at a military school who is training to be an officer.
  2. 2
    a military trainee (as at a military academy) wordnet
  3. 3
    A younger or youngest son, who would not inherit as a firstborn son would.

    "Bertram is certainly well off for a cadet of even a Baronet's family. By the time he is four or five and twenty he will have seven hundred a year, and nothing to do for it."

  4. 4
    Junior. (See also the heraldic term cadency.) in-compounds

    "a cadet branch of the family"

  5. 5
    A young man who makes a business of ruining girls to put them in brothels. US, archaic, slang
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  1. 6
    A young gentleman learning sheep farming at a station; also, any young man attached to a sheep station. New-Zealand, historical
  2. 7
    A participant in a cadetship. Australia
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname from French.

Synonyms

All synonyms
afterattendantbluejacketbootbullycaddie

Example

More examples

"The officer told the cadet to get back to work."

Etymology

Borrowed from French cadet, from Gascon capdet, from Late Latin capitellum (“small head”). Attested in English from 1634. Doublet of caddie, cadeau, cadel, capital, capitellum, and caudillo.

Related phrases

air cadetcadet bluecadet branchcadet graycadet greycadet houseofficer cadetspace cadet

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.