‖ cafard
Also cafart, caffard.
[F. cafard, caphard, of doubtful origin: some have proposed to identify it with Cat. cafre infidel, Sp., Pg. cafre cruel, which are app. ad. Arab. kāfir: see caffre.]
† 1. A hypocrite, an impostor. Obs.
| 1539 St. Papers Hen. VIII, I. 593 We commoned of the cafart, Cornibus, that slaunderose frere. 1653 Urquhart Rabelais i. xlv, So did a certain Cafard or dissembling religionaire preach at Sinay, that, etc. Ibid. i. liv, Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants. |
2. Melancholia; depression; ‘the blues’.
| 1924 P. C. Wren Beau Geste i. i. 14, I see my handful of cafard-stricken men in my mud fort. 1926 Gould Med. Dict. (ed. 8) 261/2 Cafard, a subacute melancholia, characterized by attacks of the ‘blues’..; observed in soldiers. 1949 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 Sept., Don Juan was stricken with the superb cafard of the Romantics. 1951 W. Sansom Face of Innoc. ix. 131 The itch of over-eating and the cafard that too much pernod leaves behind. |