- cad
- cad, bounder, rotter mean one who shows himself to be no gentleman. Usually they are somewhat vague terms of contempt for bad behavior or manners.Cad is applied especially to a man who violates in some way or another the code of morals or of manners by which he has been brought up and is supposed to be guided{
Napoleon III—in whom the cad, the coward, the idealist, and the sensualist were inextricably mixed— Birrell
}{I pretended to gloat over the sight .... I have rarely in my life felt such a cad— Buchan
}Bounder usually applies to a man who apes the gentleman but who in some definite way (as undue stylish-ness of dress or faulty habits of speech) marks himself as a mere imitation; the term condemns him as ignorant, obtrusive, or vulgar in a measure that puts him beyond the pale of good society{that is an antisocial proceeding, the conduct of a bounder— Archer
}{this breezy, cocksure, self-assertive Englishman was what we today should be inclined to call a bounder— Cyril Robinson
}Rotter may be applied to a man who is extremely objectionable especially on moral grounds{a regular rotter; that man is about as bad as they make them— George Moore
}The term is sometimes used of one who is felt as objectionable because of some failure, however great or small, to conform and then may suggest no more than mild disapprobation{there were a few rotters among the schoolboys, but fortunately not very many
}{he's a bit of a rotter but a jolly good fellow for all that
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.