Rapscallions and Rascals – a Word History

Hello,

Wouldn’t Rapscallion be a great name for a rap artist? Or perhaps a variety of spring onion or scallion? Instead it’s one of my favourite words for a rogue and has some roots in the French fondness for revolution and protest.

Pirate Captain Grace – rapscallion of the High Seas!

Rapscallion joined English in the late 1600s to describe a “rascally, disorderly, or despicable person”. Earlier in the 1600s you would have found rascallion which was an elaboration of rascal, and there was even a rascabilian before that.

Related words are the rare 1800s collective word for them – a rapscallionary which I adore, and even rapscallionism for the art of being a rapscallion.

So if rapscallion is an elaboration of rascal, where do we get rascal from? It dates to the mid 1300s for rabble, foot-soldiers, and dishonest or tricky people and it comes from Old French rascaille (rabble or mob). The French know about mobs, as seen during the revolution and the storming of the Bastille. Before French the path is more obscure but it’s suggested that it is related to rasicare (to scrape) a Latin verb which is also related to the word rash in English, the idea possibly being that the mob of rascals were the lowest scrapings of society.

There’s also a female version of the rapscallion or rascal. This was the rampallion (sadly now a defunct word). It dates to the late 1500s and comes from the Middle English word ramp (an ill-behaved woman). A ramp or rampe was a frolicsome girl, a virago, or a shrew and perhaps comes from the early verb sense of ramp (to rear up on hind legs to attack) which also gives us the like of rampant. By 1755 Dr. Johnson even mentioned a romp in his dictionary as being a “rude, awkward, boisterous, untaught girl”.

With the benefit of hindsight I suspect those judging women and girls to be romps, ramps, or rampallions were all men who didn’t like the females getting above their station so perhaps it’s just as well that these words have fallen from use.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Due to an ongoing family emergency since January of this year (involving an elderly parent, hospitals, nursing homes, and a great many appointments and forms) I’m cutting back my work hours further from this week. For the first time in 14 years I’m halting my NaNoWriMo challenge early, amongst other writing projects. There aren’t enough hours in the day. However I will be continuing my blog, my newspaper column, and my serialised story on Channillo.com.