blackguard

English

Alternative forms

• blaggard

Etymology

From black +‎ guard, thought to have referred originally to the scullions and lower menials of a court, or of a nobleman's household, who wore black liveries or blacked shoes and boots, or were often stained with soot.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈblæɡəd/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈblæɡɚd/
• Rhymes: -æɡə(ɹ)d

Noun

blackguard (plural blackguards)

1. The lowest servant in a household charged with pots, pans, and other kitchen equipment.
2. (old-fashioned, usually used only of men) A scoundrel; an unprincipled contemptible person; an untrustworthy person.
   • 1830, Thomas Macaulay, Review of Robert Southey's edition of Pilgrim's Progress, in the Edinburgh Review

     A man whose manners and sentiments are decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard.

   • 1899, Knut Hamsun, “Part I”, in George Egerton [pseudonym; Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright], transl., Hunger: Translated from the Norwegian, London: Leonard Smithers and Co. […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, October 1920 (December 1920 printing), →OCLC, page 58:

     Pawn another man's property for the sake of a meal, eat and drink one's self to perdition, brand one's soul with the first little sear, set the first black mark against one's honour, call one's self a blackguard to one's own face, and needs must cast one's eyes down before one's self? Never! never!

   • 2006, Jan Freeman, 'Blaggards' of the year – Boston Globe

     "Arrr, keelhaul the blaggards!" wrote Ty Burr in the Globe last summer, pronouncing sentence on the malefactors who brought us the second "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.

3. (archaic) A man who uses foul language in front of a woman, typically a woman of high standing in society.

Derived terms

• blackguardism
• blackguardly

Translations

scoundrel — see scoundrel

See also

• blagger

Verb

blackguard (third-person singular simple present blackguards, present participle blackguarding, simple past and past participle blackguarded)

1. (transitive) To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.
   • 1850, Robert Southey, English Manners

     Persons who passed each other in boats upon the Thames used to blackguard each other, in a trial of wit

   • 1962 August, “Let's have plain speaking”, in Modern Railways, page 73:

     The Southern Region takes, in the main, a candid line with its public. [...] An ill-informed attempt to blackguard the railway publicly is likely to see the complainant put politely—but very firmly—in his place.

2. (intransitive) To act like a blackguard; to be a scoundrel.

Further reading

• Blackguard in the 1920 edition of Encyclopedia Americana.
• “blackguard”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.