rapscallion

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

• IPA^(key): /ɹæpˈskæljən/

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rapscallion (plural rapscallions)

1. (dated) A rascal, scamp, rogue, or scoundrel.
   • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain , 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 , 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, →ISSN:

     But I’m the kind of rapscallion who often prefers the very good to the GREAT.

• See also Thesaurus:villain

rapscallion (comparative more rapscallion, superlative most rapscallion)

1. 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:

     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."