Chapter Cabala to Cadmean Victory of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cachet (pron. cahshay). Lettres de cachet (letters sealed). Under the old French régime, carte-blanche warrants, sealed with the king's seal, might be obtained for a consideration, and the person who held them might fill in any name. Sometimes the warrant was to set a prisoner at large, but it was more frequently for detention in the Bastille. During the administration of Cardinal Fleury 80,000 of these cachets were issued, the larger number being against the Jansenists. In the reigns of Louis XV. and XVI. fifty-nine were obtained against the one family of Mirabeau. This scandal was abolished January 15th, 1790.

Cacodæ'mon An evil spirit. Astrologers give this name to the Twelfth House of Heaven, from which only evil prognostics proceed. (Greek, kakos daimon.)

“Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,
Thou cacodemon.”
Shakespeare: Richard III., i.3.

Cacoethes (Greek). A “bad habit.”
   Cacoethes loquendi. A passion for making speeches or for talking.
   Cacoethes scribendi. The love of rushing into print; a mania for authorship.

Cacus A famous robber, represented as three-headed, and vomiting flames. He lived in Italy, and was strangled by Hercules. Sancho Panza says of the Lord Rinaldô and his friends, “They are greater thieves than Cacus.” (Don Quixote.)

Cad A low, vulgar fellow; an omnibus conductor. Either from cadet, or a contraction of cadger (a packman). The etymology of cad, a cadendo, is only a pun. N.B.- The Scotch cadie or cawdic (a little servant, or errand-boy, or carrier of a sedan-chair), without the diminutive, offers a plausible suggestion.

“All Edinburgh men and boys know that when sedan-chairs were discontinued, the old cadies sank into ruinous poverty, and became synonymous with roughs. The word was brought to London by James Hannay, who frequently used it.”- M. Pringle.

Caddice or Caddis. Worsted galloon, crewel. (Welsh, cadas, brocade; cadach is a kerchief; Irish, cadan.)

“He hath ribands of all the colours i' the rainbow; ... caddisses, cambrics, lawns.”- Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, iv. 3.

   Caddice-garter. A servant, a man of mean rank. When garters were worn in sight, the gentry used very expensive ones, but the baser sort wore worsted galloon ones. Prince Henry calls Poins a “caddice-garter.” (1 Henry IV., ii. 4.)

“Dost hear,
My honest caddis-garter?”
Glapthorne: Wit in a Constable, 1639.

Caddy A ghost, a bugbear. A caddis is a grub, a bait for anglers.

“Poor Mister Leviathan Addy!
Lo! his grandeur so lately a sun,
Is sinking (sad fall!) to a caddy.”
Peter Pindar: Great Cry and Little Wool, epistle 1.

Cade Jack Cade legislation. Pressure from without. The allusion is to the insurrection of Jack Cade, an Irishman, who headed about 20,000 armed men, chiefly of Kent, “to procure redress of grievances” (1450).

“You that love the commons, follow me;
Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.
We will not leave one lord, one gentleman:
Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon.”
Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI., iv. 2.

Cader Idris or Arthur's Seat. If any man passes the night sitting on this “chair,” he will be either a poet or a madman.

Cadessia (Battle of) gave the Arabs the monarchy of Persia. (A.D. 636.)

Cadet Younger branches of noble families are called cadets, because their armorial shields are marked with a difference called a cadency.
   Cadet is a student at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, or in one of her Majesty's training ships, the Excellent and the Britannia. From these places they are sent (after passing certain examinations) into the army as ensigns or second lieutenants, and into the navy as midshipmen. (French, cadet, junior member of a family.)