Word of the Day

: October 26, 2023

cadre

noun KAD-ray

What It Means

Broadly, cadre can refer to any group of people with a unifying relationship, as in “a cadre of lawyers,” or “a cadre of sportswriters.” More specifically, cadre can also be used for a group of people who are trained in a role or task, and who in turn can train others.

// A small but influential cadre of students ultimately persuaded their peers and then the administration to change the school’s mascot.

// The company was able to stay afloat through the downturn thanks largely to a highly-skilled cadre of workers and technicians with deep institutional memory.

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cadre in Context

“Though Sage has recently begun to embrace a more acoustic sound—whether as a member of the Fuubutsushi jazz quartet or collaborating with a cadre of flutists, slide guitarists, and harmonium players on 2021’s The Wind of Things—here he honors the spirit of the outdoors using the most computerized sounds imaginable.” — Sam Goldner, Pitchfork, 31 May 2023

Did You Know?

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.