Cadre

Borrowing from fr cadre, from Italian quadro ("square"), from Latin quadrum, from quattuor ("four").

Full definition of cadre

(plural cadres)

A frame or framework.
(military) The framework or skeleton upon which a new regiment is to be formed; the officers of a regiment forming the staff.

2002, Barry M. Stentiford, The American Home Guard: the State Militia in the Twentieth Century Chapter 9, From the original plan, thirty-four cadre battalions, with a total of 116 companies, had actually been formed, a total of about 700 officers and another 600 key enlisted men.

(chiefly in communism) The core of a managing group, or a member of such a group.

After the war, he was a party cadre and worked as a correspondent for the daily newspaper Zeri i Popullit (The People's Voice).
1997, Jae Ho Chung, China's Provinces in Reform: Class, community and political culture, edited by David S.G. Goodman, Routledge, p. 146:Finally, the exchange, circulation and education of local cadres constitute another key strategy implemented by the provincial leadership in its efforts to diffuse economic development into the backward inland region.
2006, Financial Times, China airbrushes Chen:Party cadres must guard against the temptations of power, money and sex.