rascal
pronunciation
How to pronounce rascal in British English:
UK [ˈrɑːskl]
How to pronounce rascal in American English:
US [ˈræskl]
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- Noun:
- a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel
- one who is playfully mischievous
Word Origin
- rascal
- rascal: [14] Rascal has been traced back ultimately to Latin rādere ‘scratch’. Its past participial stem rās- (source of English erase and razor) formed the basis of a Vulgar Latin verb *rāsicāre. From this was derived the noun *rāsica ‘scurf, scab, dregs, filth’, which passed into Old Northern French as *rasque (its central Old French counterpart, rasche, may be the source of English rash).And it could well be that this *rasque lies behind Old French rascaille ‘mob, rabble’, which gave English rascal (the English word originally meant ‘rabble’ too, but the application to an individual person emerged in the 15th and 16th centuries). Rapscallion [17] is an alteration of a now defunct rascallion, which may have derived from rascal.=> erase, rapscallion, rash, razor
- rascal (n.)
- mid-14c., rascaile "people of the lowest class, rabble of an army," also singular, "low, tricky, dishonest person," from Old French rascaille "rabble, mob" (12c., Modern French racaille, "the rascality or base and rascall sort, the scumme, dregs, offals, outcasts, of any company" [Cotgrave, French-English Dictionary, 1611]), perhaps a diminutive from Old French rascler, from Vulgar Latin *rasicare "to scrape" (see rash (n.)). Used also in Middle English of animals not hunted as game.
Example
- 1. He 's a canny old rascal .
- 2. It was at this stage that my foolish rascal tendencies were at their highest .
- 3. I 'd rather give up the job than work for that rascal .
- 4. You might as well throw your money into the sea as lend it to that rascal .