rapscallion
English edit
Etymology edit
From an alteration of rascallion, a fanciful elaboration of rascal (“someone who is naughty”).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
rapscallion (plural rapscallions)
- (archaic) A rascal, scamp, rogue, or scoundrel.
- 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXVIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:
- “If I get away I sha’n’t be here,” I says, “to prove these rapscallions ain’t your uncles, and I couldn’t do it if I was here. I could swear they was beats and bummers, that’s all, though that’s worth something.
- 1901, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, chapter 3, in The Inheritors:
- She was the sister who had remained within the pale; I, the rapscallion of a brother whose vagaries were trying to his relations.
- 1982, Kurt Vonnegut, chapter 1, in Deadeye Dick:
- She had a studio built for him on a loft of the carriage house behind the family mansion when he was only ten years old, and she hired a rapscallion German cabinetmaker, who had studied art in Berlin in his youth, to give Father drawing and painting lessons on weekends and after school.
Synonyms edit
- See also Thesaurus:villain
Translations edit
rascal
Adjective edit
rapscallion (comparative more rapscallion, superlative most rapscallion)
- Disreputable, roguish.
- 1869 May, Anthony Trollope, “Miss Stanbury’s Generosity”, in He Knew He Was Right, volume I, London: Strahan and Company, […], →OCLC, page 93:
- [H]e is dressed in such a rapscallion manner that the people would think you were talking to a house-breaker.
- 1895, Charlotte M. Yonge, chapter 23, in The Carbonels:
- "I baint a-going to give my master's property to a lot of rapscallion thieves and robbers like you."