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A wise man named Huey Lewis once sang that “it’s hip to be square.” As lexicographers—a hip cadre if ever there was one—we heartily agree with this sentiment, not least because the song (as performed by Lewis and his trusted cadre of bandmates dubbed “the News”) prompts us to ponder an etymological descendent (via French and Italian) of the Latin word for square, quadrum: cadre. Squares being a logical and standard shape for frames (as of window and picture varieties), it’s easy to understand why French speakers and later English speakers adopted cadre as a word meaning “frame.” A sense of cadre referring to a metaphorical framework for something (such as a novel or curriculum) soon developed. And if you consider a group of officers in a military regiment as the framework that holds things together for the unit, you’ll understand how yet another sense of cadre, referring to a nucleus of trained personnel, arose. Military leaders and their troops are well-trained and work together as a unified team, which may explain why cadre is now sometimes used more generally to refer to any group of people who have some kind of unifying characteristic—such as a belief in the heart of rock and roll, or perhaps the power of love.
Examples of cadre in a Sentence
Curtis Pashelka, The Mercury News, 4 Mar. 2025
This new cadre of female body horror directors is co-opting the style of the filmmakers who came before but for a different purpose.
—Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Feb. 2025
Security risks now pervade the federal government, thanks largely to a cadre of youngsters, some barely out of high school, whom Musk has deployed inside federal agencies, ostensibly to identify wasteful government spending.
—Shane Harris, The Atlantic, 12 Feb. 2025
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Drones will be flying overhead, relaying images of crowds in real time to a cadre of law enforcement members who are analyzing the images, looking for any potential threats.
—Jason Morris, CNN, 6 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cadre
Cite this Entry
“Cadre.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cadre. Accessed 29 Mar. 2025.
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