rakeshame

English

Etymology

Compare rakehell, ragabash.

Noun

rakeshame (plural rakeshames)

1. (obsolete) A vile, dissolute wretch.
   • 1641, John Milton, Of Reformation of Church-Discipline in England, Book II:

     […] if such divine ministeries as these, wherein the angel of the church represents the person of Christ Jesus, must lie prostitute to sordid fees, and not pass to and fro between our Saviour, that of free grace redeemed us, and the submissive penitent, without the truckage of perishing coin, and the butcherly execution of tormentors, rooks, and rakeshames sold to lucre ; then have the Babylonish merchants of souls just excuse.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “rakeshame”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)