lowlife

[loh-lahyf]

See more synonyms for lowlife on Thesaurus.com

noun, plural low·lifes.

a despicable person, especially a degenerate or immoral person.

Origin of lowlife

First recorded in 1785–95; low¹ + life

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for low-life

wretched, vile, contemptible, reprehensible, loathsome, degrading, shameful, disreputable, disgraceful, abject, awful, base, beastly, cheap, detestable, dirty, down, ignominious, infamous, insignificant

Examples from the Web for low-life

Historical Examples of low-life

Only, when some low-life like Dreer says this is a rotten school I don't care for it.
Left Tackle Thayer
Ralph Henry Barbour
Gillian throws a rolling-pin at ye turnspit's head, and we call it low-life; but we looke for such unmannerlinesse in the kitchen.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.
Various
But they are not more characteristic than his low-life pictures of itinerant players and singers.
The Standard Galleries - Holland
Esther Singleton
They are now extinguished by the low-life novel; the most intolerable of all earthly realities.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847
Various

British Dictionary definitions for low-life

lowlife

noun plural -lifes

slang
1. a member or members of the underworld
2. (as modifier)his lowlife friends

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for low-life

adj.

"disreputable, vulgar," 1794, from low (adj.) + life; as a noun, "coarse, no-good person" it is recorded from 1911. Also lowlife.