scalawag
pronunciation
How to pronounce scalawag in British English:
UK [ˈskæləwæg]
How to pronounce scalawag in American English:
US [ˈskæləˌwæɡ]
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- Noun:
- white Southerner supporting Reconstruction policies after the Civil War usually for self-interest
- a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel
- one who is playfully mischievous
Word Origin
- scalawag (n.)
- also scallawag, "disreputable fellow," 1848, American English, originally in trade union jargon, of uncertain origin; perhaps an alteration (by influence of wag "habitual joker") of Scottish scallag "farm servant, rustic," itself an alteration of Scalloway, one of the Shetland Islands, wit the reference being to little Shetland ponies (an early recorded sense of scalawag was "undersized or worthless animal," 1854). In U.S. history, used from 1862 as a derogatory term for anti-Confederate native white Southerners.