berascal

English

Etymology

be- +‎ rascal

Verb

berascal (third-person singular simple present berascals, present participle berascalling, simple past and past participle berascalled)

1. (archaic) To accuse of being a rascal or to treat as a rascal.
   • 1743, Henry Fielding, The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great:

     She beknaved, berascalled, berogued the unhappy hero, who stood silent, confounded with astonishment, but more with shame and indignation, at being thus outwitted and overreached.

   • 1790, Memoirs of a Social Monster: Or, the History of Charles Price:

     The brothers berascaled each other till they were hoarse, and our hero was, with regret we mention it, kicked out of doors, which kick was accompanied with a trifling curse.

   • 1842, Thomas Nash, John Payne Collier, Pierce Penniless's supplication to the Devil, page xix:

     In the pamphlet last mentioned, Nash asserts that the quarrel was entirely of Harvey's "seeking and beginning, in The Lamb of God [a work mentioned in the ensuing pages], where he and his brother * * * scummered out betwixt them an epistle to the readers against all poets and writers; and M. Lily [the dramatic poet, and author of Pap with a Hatchet] and me byname he beruffianised and berascalled, compared to Martin, and termed us piperly make-plays and make-bates, yet bade us hold our peace, and not be so hardy as to answer him; for, if we did, he would make a bloody day in Paul's Churchyard, and splinter our pens till they straddled again as wide as a pair of compasses.

Anagrams

• cabrales, scale bar, scalebar