blackguard
Americannoun
verb
-
(tr) to ridicule or denounce with abusive language
-
(intr) to behave like a blackguard
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of blackguard
Explanation
In movies, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment, there are often good guys and bad guys. A blackguard is a bad guy. Blackguards are up to no good. Originally, a blackguard was a type of servant dressed in black, but the meaning evolved to mean a person who is villainous at heart. This is definitely an old-fashioned word you're most likely to see in an older story or play. A blackguard likely won't be guarding anything, but they probably will be doing something evil.
Vocabulary lists containing blackguard
Wait, What? Confusing Compound Words
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Pygmalion
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Wuthering Heights
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Notably, the trailer also features "Saturday Night Live" star Pete Davidson suiting up as Blackguard and the voice of Sylvester Stallone as King Shark, a monstrous human-shark hybrid.
From Fox News • Mar. 26, 2021
If I had been the Blackguard he talks of, why did he not of his own accord refuse to keep me as his 'pupil'?
From The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals. Vol. 1 by Prothero, Rowland E. (Rowland Edmund), Baron Ernle
And as with spear and hunters' frock They bore him to the tomb, The Blackguard Bell i' the old town clock Began untouched to boom.
From Gaudeamus! Humorous Poems by Scheffel, Joseph Victor von
Blackguard Heine is worth very little; Mentzel is duller, decenter, not much wiser.
From The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I by Carlyle, Thomas
“I shall pay it all off on Mr Blackguard here some day.”
From Dutch the Diver A Man's Mistake by Fenn, George Manville
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
