caˈdetship[f.cadet¹ + -ship.]1.The status of a younger son.1831DisraeliYng.Duke iii. iii. (L.)The ambitious prospects with which he had consoled himself for his cadetship.2.The position or status of a military or naval cadet; the commission given to a cadet.1845StocquelerHandbk.Brit.India (1854) 55For the artillery and engineers, it is a condition of the presentation of a cadetship that the candidate should have gone through a regular course of instruction at Addiscombe.1854Blackw.Mag.LXXVI. 667The age of entering on their cadetship.1884Harper'sMag.May 866/1Candidates for cadetship in the Royal Navy.3.N.Z.The position or status of a young man learning sheep-farming on a sheep-station.1842R. G. JamesonN.Z., S. Aust. & N.S.W. xxiv. 337Colonial cadetships.1853J. RochfortAdv.Surveyor inN.Z.ii. 20They had just finished their ‘cadetship’, that is, they had been learning sheep-farming under a settler.