Other forms: caddies
A caddy is a small container for keeping tea in. A tea caddy, a silver caddy, the caddy is empty.
Tea caddies were made with locks in the eighteenth century, when tea was expensive enough to steal, and the antique ones are collected for that reason. The word is also used for any small storage container: a shower caddy. Note caddie with an ie, which is the golfer's assistant and a different word from French cadet; and that the two spellings are used interchangeably in golf by about half of everybody.
1nouncaddyA small container for keeping tea in.
“The caddy is silver and about two hundred years old.”
caddy is a small container.
Malay kati was a unit of weight of about a pound and a third, used across the eastern tea trade. English took the weight, applied it to the box the quantity came in, and forgot the measurement entirely.
Tamil
கட்டி — measure of weight; clod, lump
Malay
kati — weight used in China, Indonesia, and Japan
English, today
caddy
Built from
An alteration of catty (“(unit of) weight used in China, equivalent to 1⅓ pounds avoirdupois (about 0.605 kilograms)”), borrowed from Malay kati (“weight used in China, Indonesia, and Japan”), from Tamil கட்டி (“measure of weight; clod, lump”), from கட்டு (“to coagulate, congeal, or consolidate (into a concretion); to harden”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA