2. Base; wicked and mean; cowardly; despicable.
Arnold had sped his caitiff flight. --W. Irving.
Avarice doth tyrannize over her caitiff and slave.
--Holland.
2. A wretched or unfortunate man. [Obs.] --Chaucer.
3. A mean, despicable person; one whose character meanness
and wickedness meet.
Note: 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.