Cai"tiff (?), a. [OE.
caitif, cheitif, captive, miserable, OF.
caitif, chaitif, captive, mean, wretched, F.
chétif, fr. L. captivus captive, fr.
capere to take, akin to E. heave. See Heave,
and cf. Captive.] 1. Captive;
wretched; unfortunate. [Obs.] Chaucer.
2. Base; wicked and mean; cowardly;
despicable.
Arnold had sped his caitiff flight.
W. Irving.
Cai"tiff, n. A captive; a
prisoner. [Obs.]
Avarice doth tyrannize over her caitiff and
slave.
Holland.
2. A wretched or unfortunate man.
[Obs.] Chaucer.
3. A mean, despicable person; one whose
character meanness and wickedness meet.
The deep-felt conviction of men that slavery breaks down the
moral character . . . speaks out with . . . distinctness in the
change of meaning which caitiff has undergone signifying
as it now does, one of a base, abject disposition, while there
was a time when it had nothing of this in it. Trench.
