• cavalier •
Pronunciation: kæ-vê-leer • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun, adjective
Meaning: 1. (Noun) A gallant, chivalrous man, a gentleman. 2. (Noun) A horseman, horse-soldier, especially a knight. 3. (Noun) A lady's escort or dance partner. 4. (Adjective) Arrogant, haughty, dismissive, disdainful. 5. (Adjective) Carefree, jaunty, nonchalant.
Notes: Today's Good Word started out as a synonym of chevalier ([she-vê-leer]). It comes with a rather large extended family, including two adjectives, cavalierly "haughty, disdainfully" and cavalierish "like a cavalier" and two nouns, cavaliership "position of a cavalier" and cavalierism "features of a cavalier".
In Play: As a noun, today's word might be heard in expressions like this: "Courtleigh Manners is the perfect hired cavalier if you ever want a playful escort to accompany you to a party." As an adjective, we might hear something like this: "Anita Job was sacked because of her cavalier attitude toward work, coming in and leaving whenever it suited her."
Word History: Today's Good Word comes from Old Italian cavaliere, inherited from Late Latin caballarius, the direct descendant of Latin caballus "pack horse, nag", source of French cheval, Italian cavallo, Romanian cal, and Spanish caballo—all meaning just "horse". Caballus had replaced equus for "horse" by Late Latin. It probably goes back to PIE kaba- "pack horse, nag", because we find Greek kaballes "work horse, nag", Khotanese kabä "horse", Persian kaval "slow, clumsy horse", from Old Iranian kaba-, kabala-, "horse", akin to Late Latin cabo "gelding", and Russian and Czech kobyla "mare". Greek, Latin, and Proto-Slavic probably borrowed the word from Old Persian. (Today's gratitude is due our old friend Rob Towart for suggesting this rather cavalier Good Word.)
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