rapparee

[ rap-uh-ree ]

noun

1. an armed Irish freebooter or plunderer, especially of the 17th century.
2. any freebooter or robber.

rapparee

/ ˌræpəˈriː /

noun

1. an Irish irregular soldier of the late 17th century
2. obsolete.
   any plunderer or robber

Word History and Origins

Origin of rapparee¹

First recorded in 1680–90, rapparee is from the Irish word rapaire

Word History and Origins

Origin of rapparee¹

C17: from Irish rapairidhe pike, probably from English rapier

Example Sentences

But—if that's how you're going to take it, you foul-mouthed old rapparee!

From Project Gutenberg

Day in we hunt the spinney fox, Day out the rapparee; His cave is in the broken rocks Above the Correi-buidhe.

From Project Gutenberg

Rapparee, rap-ar-ē′, n. a wild Irish plunderer: a vagabond.

From Project Gutenberg

Here the boy was taught his letters by a relative and dependent, Elizabeth Delap, and was sent in his seventh year to a village school kept by an old quartermaster on half-pay, who professed to teach nothing but reading, writing and arithmetic, but who had an inexhaustible fund of stories about ghosts, banshees and fairies, about the great Rapparee chiefs, Baldearg O’Donnell and galloping Hogan, and about the exploits of Peterborough and Stanhope, the surprise of Monjuich and the glorious disaster of Brihuega.

From Project Gutenberg

He had the advantage in numbers; the advantage in generalship; above all, the advantage in the quality of his troops, who, if but few of them were as good as the trained French soldiers of his adversary, were none of them so bad as the rapparee Irish levies who formed the bulk of James's forces.

From Project Gutenberg