scapegrace

[ skeyp-greys ]
See synonyms for scapegrace on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a complete rogue or rascal; a habitually unscrupulous person; scamp.

Origin of scapegrace

1
First recorded in 1800–10; scape2 + grace

Words Nearby scapegrace

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use scapegrace in a sentence

  • Now this younger son—I believe that he is in his twenty-first year at present—has been something of a scapegrace.

    St. Martin's Summer | Rafael Sabatini
  • That scapegrace brother is the one of all that family most worthy your respect and mine.

    The Diamond Coterie | Lawrence L. Lynch
  • His military service involved him in the wild pleasures and perils of scapegrace lads upon a foreign soil.

  • Yes they can, aunt, if she married a man whom she knew to be a scapegrace because he was very rich and an earl.

    Can You Forgive Her? | Anthony Trollope
  • One winter a young scapegrace stole a sailboat from the wharf and put out to sea.

British Dictionary definitions for scapegrace

scapegrace

/ (ˈskeɪpˌɡreɪs) /


noun
  1. an idle mischievous person

Origin of scapegrace

1
C19: from scape ² + grace, alluding to a person who lacks God's grace

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