caitiff

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The Word of the Day for June 19 is:

caitiff   \KAY-tif\   adjective
     : cowardly, despicable

Example sentence:
     "The caitiff villain yet seemed... to have some sense of 
his being the object of public detestation, which made him 
impatient of being in public." (Sir Walter Scott, _The Heart of 
Midlothian_)

Did you know?
     The adjective's more common, but "caitiff" also occurs as a 
noun meaning "a base, cowardly, or despicable person" (as in 
Shakespeare's _Measure for Measure_: "O thou caitiff! O thou 
varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal!"). Both the adjective and the 
noun came into English in the 14th century, and both evolved 
from the Anglo-French adjective "caitif," meaning "wretched, 
despicable." The French word in turn derived from the 
Latin "captivus," meaning "captive" -- the shift from "captive" 
to "wretched" perhaps prompted by the perception of captives as 
wretched and worthy of scorn.