Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Informal A reprobate; a rascal.
- n. A white Southerner working for or supporting the federal government during Reconstruction.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An under-sized, scraggy, or ill-fed animal of little value.
- n. A worthless, good-for-nothing, or contemptible fellow; a scamp; a scapegrace. The word was used in the southern United States, during the period of reconstruction (1865 to 1870 and later), in an almost specific sense, being opprobriously applied by the opponents of the Republican party to native Southerners who acted with that party, as distinguished from
carpet-bagger , a Republican of Northern origin.
Wiktionary
- n. pejorative, US, archaic Any white Southerner who supported the federal plan of Reconstruction after the Civil War or who joined with the black freedmen and the carpetbaggers in support of Republican Party policies.
- n. pejorative, archaic A rascal. alternative spelling of scallywag.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Slang, U.S. A scamp; a scapegrace.
WordNet 3.0
- n. one who is playfully mischievous
- n. a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel
- n. a white Southerner who supported Reconstruction policies after the American Civil War (usually for self-interest)
Etymologies
- Of Irish origin, "scalawag" refers to a "rascal" and is probably from sgalog a labourer. (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The scalawag was the native white man who made up the middle class of the South; the planter above, the Negro below.”
“A scalawag was a Southerner who deserted his political affiliations for the spoils of the Republican party.”
“But certain it is that the enemy - authorities and 'scalawag' - friends, who now cruelly oppress the whites and elevate the negro over us - are hated as the ravaging armies never were, and a true union seems farther off than ever. ”
“A "scalawag" if as a Southern born man he votes with the Republicans; a "carpet-bagger" if he comes from the North, no matter how he votes.”
“States of America after the war and during the period of reconstruction, he would have been designated, in the picturesque slang of the period, as a "scalawag"; for he not only deserted Napoleon in his final defeat and deepest woe, but joined his enemies, took office from the victors, perverted his public trust to private gain, and ended his career dishonored in the estimation of all true men.”
“A "scalawag" was any Southern white who allied himself politically with the negroes, and a "carpet-bagger" was a Northern adventurer, for whose worldly goods a gripsack sufficed, -- or, in general, any Northerner whatever.”
The Negro and the Nation A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement
“During that era, the term "scalawag" was used to refer to white Southerners who supported the federal government's actions in the region.”
“Enna shot a fierce glance at him, muttering "scalawag," half under her breath, while his old father said testily, "Horace, you speak too strongly.”
“You discover the words, “whippersnapper,” “scalawag” and “by-cracky” creeping into your vocabulary.”
You Know You’re Over The Hill When… « You Got to be Kidding's Blog
““What are you prattling on about, you chatty old scalawag?””
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘scalawag’.
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old timey talk
Words or Sayings from the 1920's or whatever that no one really uses anymore (at least in that context).
scram, bearcat, heavens to betsy, dick, double-cross, ducky, gams, goofy, hooch, jalopy, john, joe and 174 more...
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Dirty Deeds, Acts & Villainous Arcana
Villains, evildoers, and the wonderful words to describe them.
putsch, internecine, galère, stygian, infernal, opprobrium, anathema, bruit, scurrility, mulct, misanthropic, invective and 102 more...
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Origin unknown
bamboozle, ballyhoo, banter, bludgeon, chad, cocktail, culvert, curmugeon, dildo, dude, dweeb, dyke and 51 more...
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scoundrels and bastards
already several of these lists, but I wanted my own
varlet, scoundrel, ne'er-do-well, cad, thug, churl, boor, hooligan, bastard, slubberdegullion, dastard, tosspot and 85 more...
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Random Words! Add Your Own! :D
Randomness time! Add your own words. ❤
Love, bucket, brigade, actuary, canal, canasta, why is the door open, coconut, stochastic, haphazard, accidental, chance and 38 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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slackagogo's Words
agelast, aggiornamento, zaftig, wowserism, vox barbara, verbigeration, tchotchke, tautology, sycophant, spoonerism, solipsism, sobriquet and 288 more...
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thekatespanos's list
pomposity, gaggle, scintilla, lemming, bilk, vanquish, conflate, plenary, verisimilitude, perspicacious, rattletrap, obdurate and 325 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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S is for Sweater Puppy
My S Words
secret agent, sweater puppy, skivvies, soda jerk, surly, space madness, sad sack, sadsack, scoundrel, scrabble, shaken teddy bear..., saucy and 181 more...
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EN - funny (single) words
"Fornication" is not equal to "formication".
Words with funny meaning, spelling or both.biffy, bibcock, barratry, bastinado, bezonian, bibliobibuli, bodewash, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, bosky, brobdingnagian and 729 more...
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good words
words that are mostly fun to say or just lovely
undulate, voluptuous, whimsy, parse, dank, cerulean, peen, traipsing, listless, coup de grace, reconnoiter, mercurial and 499 more...
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Kaichi's Wordie Darlings, or I'm a Lo...
persnickety, discombobulated, braggadoccio, anthropomorphous, antelucan, confluxible, anomalous, poseur, gallivant, poppycock, falderal, gewgaw and 705 more...
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Palabrarium
The delicious wonderful words that I love terribly dearly and without which, the world would be a less inventive and worthwhile place. Also, ostensibly, the reason 1984 and esperanto secretly suck.
panoply, footpad, piccalilli, snickersnee, marl, hispid, greengage, slumgullion, golliwog, mumbletypeg, circumlocution, quiescent and 366 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for scalawag.

bilby See also scallywag. Apr 26, 2008
bilby See also scallywag. Apr 26, 2008
optimusprime I got this word from my mother, whose family goes back to the old West and the post-Civil War south. She used it as a generally disparaging term, and then only rarely. Apr 26, 2008