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

Translations

Adjective

rapscallion (comparative more rapscallion, superlative most rapscallion)

  1. Disreputable, roguish.

Translations

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