ETYMOLOGY
from French cafard, caphard, of doubtful origin:
some have proposed to identify it with Catalan cafre (infidel), Spanish, Portugese cafre (cruel), which are apparently adapted from Arabic kafir
PRONUNCIATION
kaff-AR
EXAMPLE
“…wherat he woundred, and sayd that he thought Your Grace the Prince best furnished thereof in Christendom. We commoned of the cafart, Cornibus, that slanderose frere. He said that Your Majesties Ambassadour, the Bishop of Hereford, hath sued and proposed certayn articles against him, athe copie whereof he hath promessed to sende unto me…”
From: State Papers Published Under the Authority of His Majesty’s Commission
King Henry the Eighth, 1830
Crumwell to King Henry VIII, 1539
Lexicophilia 