Meaning

noun a boy or man

noun a male child (a familiar term of address to a boy)

originEtymology tree Middle English ladde English lad From Middle English ladde (“foot soldier, servant; male commoner; boy”), from late Old English *ladda (attested in Old English personal byname Ladda), probably of North Germanic 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…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0