rakish
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
rake (“man habituated to immoral conduct”) + -ish.
Pronunciation[edit]
Adjective[edit]
rakish (comparative more rakish, superlative most rakish)
- Dashingly, carelessly, or sportingly unconventional or stylish; jaunty; characterized by a devil-may-care unconventionality; having a somewhat disreputable quality or appearance.
- 2007, Houston Chronicle, 6/8/2007
- the rakish Dennis Quaid, a Houston native who is moving to Texas in a couple of years and wants it to become "the new Hollywood."
- 2007, Houston Chronicle, 6/8/2007
- (dated) Like a rake; dissolute; profligate.
- 1848-50, William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis, ch 5:
- Poverty seems as if it were disposed, before it takes possession of a man entirely, to attack his extremities first: the coverings of his head, feet, and hands are its first prey. All these parts of the Captain’s person were particularly rakish and shabby.
- 1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, ch. 14:
- The door was open, and the hall was blocked up by a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in cases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the daylight.
- 1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith [from the Encyclopædia Britannica]”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, OCLC 30956848:
- The arduous task of converting a rakish lover.
- 1848-50, William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis, ch 5:
Translations[edit]
dashingly stylish
like a rake
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