Scoundrel

[tcward]

I just read this word somewhere else, and it occurred to me that it would make a great GW suggestion...

The sound of it is so ... intense!

-Tim

[gailr]

It sounds more troublesome than scallawag.

[Stargzer]

. . . or rapscallion, a word my father used to use sometimes to refer to us.

From Etymology Online:

Scoundrel (1589)

Scalawag (1848)

Rapscallioin (1699)

[tcward]

Yes! I agree!

scalawag
"disreputable fellow," 1848, Amer.Eng., originally in trade union jargon, of uncertain origin, perhaps an alteration of Scottish scallag "farm servant, rustic" (by influence of wag "habitual joker"). An early recorded sense was "undersized or worthless animal" (1854), which suggests an alteration of Scalloway, one of the Shetland Islands, in allusion to little Shetland ponies. In U.S. history, used from 1862 of anti-Confederate native white Southerners.

I hadn't remembered the "anti-Confederate Southerner" connotations! And I think I always spelled it (in my mind) 'scallywag'...

Scalawag is the underachieving baby brother of the Scoundrel family!

-Tim