blackguard
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From black + guard, thought to have referred originally to the scullions and lower menials of a court, or of a nobleman's household, who wore black liveries or blacked shoes and boots, or were often stained with soot.
Pronunciation
Noun
blackguard (plural blackguards)
- The lowest servant in a household charged with pots, pans, and other kitchen equipment.
- (old-fashioned, usually used only of men) A scoundrel; an unprincipled contemptible person; an untrustworthy person.
- 1830, Thomas Macaulay, Review of Robert Southey's edition of Pilgrim's Progress, in the Edinburgh Review
- A man whose manners and sentiments are decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard.
- 1899, Knut Hamsun, “Part I”, in George Egerton [pseudonym; Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright], transl., Hunger , London: Leonard Smithers and Co , →OCLC, page 68:
- Pawn another man's property for the sake of a meal, eat and drink one's self to perdition, brand one's soul with the first little sear, set the first black mark against one's honour, call one's self a blackguard to one's own face, and needs must cast one's eyes down before one's self? Never! never!
- 2006, Jan Freeman, 'Blaggards' of the year – Boston Globe
- "Arrr, keelhaul the blaggards!" wrote Ty Burr in the Globe last summer, pronouncing sentence on the malefactors who brought us the second "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.
- 1830, Thomas Macaulay, Review of Robert Southey's edition of Pilgrim's Progress, in the Edinburgh Review
- (archaic) A man who uses foul language in front of a woman, typically a woman of high standing in society.
Derived terms
Translations
scoundrel — see scoundrel
See also
Verb
blackguard (third-person singular simple present blackguards, present participle blackguarding, simple past and past participle blackguarded)
- (transitive) To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.
- 1850, Robert Southey, English Manners:
- Persons who passed each other in boats upon the Thames used to blackguard each other, in a trial of wit
- 1962 August, “Let's have plain speaking”, in Modern Railways, page 73:
- The Southern Region takes, in the main, a candid line with its public. [...] An ill-informed attempt to blackguard the railway publicly is likely to see the complainant put politely—but very firmly—in his place.
- (intransitive) To act like a blackguard; to be a scoundrel.
Further reading
Blackguard in the 1920 edition of Encyclopedia Americana.- “blackguard”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
