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scallywag

[skal-ee-wag]
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noun
  1. scalawag.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

liarcheatruffianvillaintroublemakerdelinquentmischief-makerscoundrelreprobatehooligansneakroguescalawagshysterfraudtricksterrowdyswindlercheaterprankster

Examples from the Web for scallywag

Historical Examples

  • He considered him a scallywag, but no longer a bounder or a cad.

    The Law Inevitable

    Louis Couperus

  • The circuit judge appointed was named S——, and in political parlance he was a "scallywag."

  • It is better Desmond should become a priest than die a scallywag—and it will keep him out of the way of that Sylvia Custance.

    Grey Town

    Gerald Baldwin

  • He was no scapegrace or scallywag such as you might find nowadays crowing over his sins in Chelsea.

  • For I thought it was right she should know that you werent just a scallywag private soldier like the rest of us.

    The Rough Road

    William John Locke

British Dictionary definitions for scallywag

scallywag

noun
  1. informal a scamp; rascal
  2. (after the US Civil War) a White Southerner who supported the Republican Party and its policy of Black emancipation. Scallywags were viewed as traitors by their fellow Southerners
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Also called: scalawag, scallawag

Word Origin

C19: (originally undersized animal) of uncertain origin
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