Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A scoundrel; a rascal.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A graceless fellow; a careless, idle, harebrained fellow.
  • noun The red-throated diver or loon, Colymbus septentrionalis. Also cape race.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A graceless, unprincipled person; one who is wild and reckless.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun ​A wild and reckless person (especially a boy); a scoundrel.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a reckless and unprincipled reprobate

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[scape + grace.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From scape +‎ grace

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Examples

  • Poor old garrulous fool; he little knew that the deformed, but strong and vigorous man that asked him of this companion of his youth was that very "scapegrace" himself transformed, and with age held back from him by a miracle.

    A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari Seven Tales of South-West Africa Frederick Cornell

  • There is a surprise visit, on a dark and stormy night, from Elizabeth's semi-hysterical and least-favorite sister, Lydia, who shrieks out a tale of misadventure in the nearby forest involving her scapegrace husband, the notorious Mr. Wickham.

    Mr. & Mrs. Darcy To the Rescue Tom Nolan 2011

  • Meanwhile, we can all be grateful that we are not his wife ("a page in my life which once had writing on it has become absolutely blank," he wrote in 1863) or his scapegrace son, Alfred (dispatched to a sheep station in New South Wales in 1865 and never seen again), but only his admiring readers.

    Snapshots of 'Boz' D.J. Taylor 2011

  • And you decided you were going to put aside your scapegrace ways and trot over here to make her your wife.

    How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Deborah Gonzales 2011

  • There, in this scapegrace-scapegoat, all the harms of the village-world found a refuge, were exercised there month after month, until the time came 20 years later for them to be released at large again in the next inferno to be wrought by adult society.

    Letters: Just William and the ghosts of war 2011

  • No wonder he got angry when she called him a scapegrace.

    How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Deborah Gonzales 2011

  • No wonder he got angry when she called him a scapegrace.

    How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Deborah Gonzales 2011

  • And you decided you were going to put aside your scapegrace ways and trot over here to make her your wife.

    How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Deborah Gonzales 2011

  • Isn't He Something movingly shows how the Mizner mama dotes on her scapegrace son.

    Road Show – review 2011

  • "It was a pleasure when I lived in England to feel I belonged to a tradition of scapegrace heirs," he said in 1991.

    Ben Sonnenberg, founder of Grand Street literary magazine, dies at 73 2010

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