Caddice

or Caddis. Worsted galloon, crewel. (Welsh, cadas, brocade; cadach is a kerchief; Irish, cadan.)

“He hath ribands of all the colours iʹ the rainbow; … caddisses, cambrics, lawns.”—Shakespeare: Winter’s Tale, iv. 3.

Caddice-garter. A servant, a man of mean rank. When garters were worn in sight, the gentry used very expensive ones, but the baser sort wore worsted galloon ones. Prince Henry calls Poins a “caddice-garter.” (1 Henry IV., ii. 4.)

“Dost hear,

My honest caddis-garter?”

Glapthorne: Wit in a Constable, 1639.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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