In Scottish dialect, a traveling tinker, beggar, or vagrant; a member of a nomadic group or lowborn vagrant.
From Scottish Gaelic 'ceàrd' meaning 'tinsmith' or 'craftsman', eventually applied to wandering metalworkers and then more broadly to vagrants. The word reflects the social status and occupations of traveling groups in Scotland.
The Scottish word 'caird' got so associated with poverty and vagrancy that calling someone a caird became an insult—it's a language example of how class prejudice gets baked into words!
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