Cavalier

/ˌkævəˈlɪɚ/ · adjective

Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

1. Lacking the proper care or concern for something important, reckless, rash, high-handed.
2. High-spirited.
3. Supercilious.
4. (obsolete) Free and easy; unconcerned with formalities
5. (historical) Of or pertaining to the party of King Charles I of England (1600–1649).
6. (historical) A military man serving on horse, (chiefly) early modern cavalry officers who had abandoned the heavy armor of medieval knights.
7. (historical) A gallant: a sprightly young dashing military man.
8. A gentleman of the class of such officers, particularly:

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.

Leporello (a surname that proved the antechamber not to be wholly illiterate), far from resembling Don Juan’s trembling valet, was a handsome young man, with an animated face, nimble in gait, and of cavalier manners; wearing elegantly enough the clothes which had, doubtless, appertained to his master; and evidently quite the pet of the ladies present, and paying assiduous court to Mademoiselle Astarté, the queen of the party.

The roundheads in the school showers easily equalled the cavaliers.

Since penile preference is so tied up with personal aesthetics and body image, it seems both logical and fair to leave the choice of cavalier or roundhead to the owner of the organ, thus avoiding the sort of life-long pain expressed in a comment like this:[…]

I knew about the English Civil War, Cavaliers (wrong but romantic) versus Roundheads (right but repulsive), but I didn't think that was what he was talking about. I shook my head. “It means our willies aren't circumcised,” he explained. "Are you a cavalier or a roundhead?”

His social and kind nature is inferred from his cavaliering the ladies Percy and Mortimer, and introducing them, before their husbands depart for the war.

Synonyms for cavalier

Antonyms for cavalier

Related Words

Word Forms

• more cavalier
• most cavalier
• cavaliers
• cavaliering
• cavaliered

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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