Make Your Point: RAPSCALLION

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pronounce RAPSCALLION:

rap SKAL ee yun

connect this word to others:

When you hear a fanciful word like rapscallion, you just know someone had a good time inventing it. "Rascal? Nah, I can make that sound even rascallier."

See if you can recall these other whimsically coined words:

1. Something Brob______gian is very big.

2. Something lill____ian is very small.

3. Something Tralf____dorian has a peaceful attitude of acceptance toward death and destiny, as if existing outside of time in a dimension of pure understanding.

All three of these exorbitantly silly terms were coined by novelists: the first two, by Jonathan Swift, and the third, by Kurt Vonnegut. Both literary rapscallions, in the lighthearted sense.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

"Rapscallion" has been around in English since the late 1600s. It arose as a slightly different version of "rascallion," which itself arose as a fun, silly, slightly different version of "rascal." And "rascal" traces back through Old French, possibly to a Latin word for "to scrape."

A rascal, or a rapscallion, is a sneaky, tricky, dishonest person.

Or, more lightheartedly, a rapscallion is a playful, mischievous person.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Noun, the countable kind: "In 1993's Dennis the Menace, Mason Gamble plays the titular rapscallion." "It was all part of an amusing American tradition of rapscallions doing their little side hustles (New York Times)."

Other forms:

The plural is "rapscallions."

If you need an adjective, there's "rapscallionly," or you can just use "rapscallion" itself, as in "rapscallion behavior."

The noun for the idea or the behavior is "rapscallionism." And there's even a noun for a group of rapscallions: they're a "rapscallionry."

how to use it:

With a smile! "Rapscallion" is a fun, playful word, and a touch old-fashioned, typically uttered with humorous crankiness, like the words "newfangled" and "whippersnapper."

Because "rapscallion" is pretty long, it's great for lots of emphasis compared to punchier synonyms, like "imp" and "scamp."

To use it, simply refer to someone as a rapscallion, or refer to a certain group of people as rapscallions.

examples:

"He's a bad one, that Aladdin, a rapscallion and a thief."
— Alan Menken, Musical Theatre International, Disney's Aladdin JR.

"Let's tell each other a real truth: although you thought of Han Solo as a gruff rapscallion with a heart of gold, you emphasized the 'heart of gold' part in your mind."
— Dieter Bohn, The Verge, 13 November 2019

has this page helped you understand "rapscallion"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "rapscallion" without saying "rogue" or "rascal."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "There's the rapscallion (somebody, real or fictional), who (does something sneaky or mischievous)."

Example: "There is the beloved rapscallion the Hamburglar, who, wearing what looks like prison stripes and a mask, cannot stop himself from absconding to his secret lair with Ronald McDonald's hamburgers."
— Chauncey DeVega, The Verge, 20 January 2019

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is the Game of Venery!

Longtime readers may recognize this game from 2019, when we played with terms from James Lipton's book An Exaltation of Larks. This time, we’ll play with terms from Daniel E. Meyers's online Collective Noun Catalog.

To play, check out the two templates below, and have fun filling them in and sharing your inventions with your family. You can be as lofty, silly, or bawdy as you like. To see the way the terms actually appear in Meyers’s catalog, scroll to the bottom of the issue.

Try these today:

1. a concatenation of _____

2. a/an _____ of leftovers

review this word:

1. The opposite of RAPSCALLION is

A. ANGEL.
B. TASKMASTER.
C. RINGLEADER.

2. In discussing the book Treasure Island, you're most likely to describe _____ as a rapscallion.

A. the eager teenager Jim Hawkins
B. the gruff, often drunk seaman Billy Bones
C. the sneaky yet charismatic pirate Long John Silver

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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