" cadetship "

[Noun]  | "ca*det" | \ kə-ˈdet \

1: a younger brother or son

2: youngest son

3: a younger branch of a family or a member of it

Origin: 1610 ;

 Borrowed from French, going back to Middle French, borrowed from Gascon (15th-century) capdet "chief, captain" (Old Occitan capdel), going back to Vulgar Latin *capitellus "leader," from Latin capit-, caput "head" + -ellus, diminutive suffix, originally from noun stems ending in -ul-, -r-, and -n-{mat|head:1|};

  * Note : Compare {capital:3|capital:3}, {caudillo|caudillo}. In the fifteenth century the younger sons of Gascon nobles, lacking an inheritance, were recruited into the French army to learn the military profession. In this context the Gascon word was loaned into French, but with the sense "younger son," the characteristic feature of these men to the French, rather than with its Gascon meaning. The Gascon connection was soon lost. The -t of capdet shows the peculiar outcome of Latin geminate -ll- in Gascon. The cluster -pd- was simplified in French to -d-.;

[Noun]  | "cadetship" 

[Noun]  | "cadet" 

[Noun]  | "cadets"