rapscallion

English

Etymology

From an alteration of rascallion, a fanciful elaboration of rascal (“someone who is naughty”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɹæpˈskæljən/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

rapscallion (plural rapscallions)

  1. (dated) 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 M. Hueffer [i.e., Ford Madox Ford], chapter 3, in The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 2025 June 19, Scott Heller, quoting Stephen Fry, “Stephen Fry Knows He’s Become a Middle-Aged Cliché”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
      But I’m the kind of rapscallion who often prefers the very good to the GREAT.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

rapscallion (comparative more rapscallion, superlative most rapscallion)

  1. Disreputable, roguish.

Translations

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