The word is one which is always used in a bad sense.

"Of a dog; currish," is the definition which we get from Johnson,--quite correctly, and in accordance with its etymology.

And he gives us examples.

"How vilely does this cynic rhyme," he takes from Shakespeare; and Addison speaks of a man degenerating into a cynic.

That Thackeray's nature was soft and kindly,--gentle almost to a fault,--has been shown elsewhere.