cavalier

Definition

Lacking the proper care or concern for something important, reckless, rash, high-handed.

Etymology

First appears c. 1562 in a translation by Peter Whitehorne. Borrowed from Middle French cavalier (“horseman”), itself borrowed from Old Italian cavaliere (“mounted soldier, knight”), borrowed from Old Occitan cavalier, from Late Latin caballārius (“horseman”), from Latin caballus (“horse”), probably from Gaulish caballos 'nag', variant of cabillos (compare Welsh ceffyl, Breton kefel, Irish capall), akin to German (Swabish) Kōb 'nag' and Old Church Slavonic кобꙑла (kobyla) 'mare'. Previous English forms include cavalero and cavaliero. Doublet of caballero and chevalier.

Example Sentences

• "But, on the following day, no sign of Poirot. I was getting angry. He was really treating us in the most cavalier fashion."
• "Such a cavalier attitude might seem to suggest that doctors consider the uterus as dispensable an organ as, say, an appendix—and some feminists have accused the medical profession of just such callousness […]"
• "For another example, see Palumbo, Rudd, and Whelan (2006), who found that several empirical consumption papers from the 1980s and 1990s took a cavalier approach to deflation and measurement that unfortunately affected their results."