Cai″tiff, n. A captive; a prisoner.
Avarice doth tyrannize over her caitiff and slave.
Holland.
2. A wretched or unfortunate man. Chaucer.
3. A mean, despicable person; one whose character meanness and wickedness meet.
The deep-felt conviction of men that slavery breaks down the moral character... speaks out with... distinctness in the change of meaning which caitiff has undergone signifying as it now does, one of a base, abject disposition, while there was a time when it had nothing of this in it. Trench.