A laddie is a boy, in Scottish and northern use. A wee laddie, listen here laddie, the laddie next door.
It is the male counterpart of lassie and carries the same warmth, and both belong to Scotland and northern England rather than to general British speech. Said by anybody from elsewhere it sounds like an imitation, which it usually is.
1nounladdieA boy, in Scottish and northern use.
“The old Scottish fisherman smiled at the boy and said, "You'll catch one soon, laddie."”
laddie is a boy.
Middle English
ladde
English
lad
English, today
laddie
From lad + -ie. lad comes from Middle English ladde. From Middle English ladde (“foot soldier, servant; male commoner; boy”), from late Old English ladda (attested in Old English personal byname Ladda), probably of gmq - origin. Compare Old Norse ladd (“hose, woolen stocking; sock”), which may have undergone semantic shift to mean a term of abuse (e.g. foolish youth, youngster of lower social status, etc.); thence by connotative amelioration coming to mean any young fellow. Compare Norwegian ladd (“rough sock, woolen or felt slipper”) and the -ladd in compounds Askeladd/Askeladden (a nickname in fairy tales, "Ash Lad") and tusseladd (“nincompoop”). See also Swedish ladder (“old shoes”), lodde (“Frisian shoe”), lädder (“socks”), all said to be related to Old Norse loðinn (“hairy, shaggy, woolly”), loddi (“shaggy dog”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA