ragamuffin
Americannoun
-
a ragged, disreputable person; tatterdemalion.
-
a child in ragged, ill-fitting, dirty clothes.
- Synonyms:
- guttersnipe, urchin, waif
noun
-
a ragged unkempt person, esp a child
-
another name for ragga
Etymology
Origin of ragamuffin
1350–1400; Middle English Ragamoffyn, name of a demon in the poem Piers Plowman
Explanation
Use the word ragamuffin to affectionately tease your friend who shows up late to brunch with messy hair, dark circles under her eyes, and her shirt on backwards. In essence, you are calling her a shabbily clad street urchin. Now a generally playful and affectionate term indicating dishevelment, ragamuffin came into existence in the mid-14th century with a more punishing connotation. Derived in part from the word ragged, then used to refer to the devil’s shaggy appearance, it has also historically been used to describe a lazy and worthless, or beggarly individual. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable provides a helpful and quirky explanation for the word: “A muffin is a poor thing of a creature, a 'regular muff'; so that a ragamuffin is a sorry creature in rags.”
Vocabulary lists containing ragamuffin
"A Village After Dark" by Kazuo Ishiguro
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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The Golden Goblet
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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.
How did Great Britain, possessing both an empire on which the sun never set and the greatest navy the world had ever seen, lose to ragamuffin American rebels?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
To some, he was a rollicking drifter in ragamuffin punk tatters.
From BBC ● Dec. 2, 2023
A ragamuffin looking for a meal, Eurydice receives instead a feast of affection that includes a proposition of marriage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 28, 2022
They shoot nail guns and play in the fire simulation room, and their ragamuffin charms quickly win over the grown-ups.
From New York Times ● Nov. 7, 2019
Occasionally some ragamuffin troupe would mum a play on a street corner or I’d hear a fiddler in a pub.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
