Definitions

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

  • adjective Lacking a sense of responsibility; reckless.
  • adverb With abandon; recklessly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Harebrained; flighty; giddy; rash.
  • noun A giddy, harebrained, or rash person.

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

  • adjective colloq. Wild; giddy; flighty; rash; thoughtless.

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

  • adjective wild, careless, irresponsible
  • adverb wildly, carelessly, irresponsibly

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

  • noun a reckless impetuous irresponsible person
  • adverb in a wild or reckless manner
  • adjective cheerfully irresponsible

Etymologies

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

[Perhaps alteration of hare 'em, scare 'em : hare, to frighten + scare.]

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Examples

  • Such encounters were relatively common in the harum-scarum chaos of an early solar system that teemed with veering planets and asteroids.

    The Loneliest Planet Alan Hirshfeld 2011

  • Besides, had not her own cousin, -- though a remote and distant one to be sure, the black sheep, the harum-scarum, the ne'er-do-well, -- had not he come down out of that weird North country with a hundred thousand in yellow dust, to say nothing of a half-ownership in the hole from which it came?

    THE ONE THOUSAND DOZEN 2010

  • Once you get above chapter book level, it seems like almost all new fiction for kids is (or wants to be) thrilling, exciting, harum-scarum, suspenseful, non-stop, etc.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Roger Sutton 2009

  • They may prefer to dive into a thrilling, suspenseful harum-scarum world when they read.

    My new secret boyfriend Roger Sutton 2009

  • And yet, he was just turned forty was clear-eyed, calm-hearted, hearty-pulsed, man-strong; and yet, his history, until he was thirty, had been harum-scarum and erratic to the superlative.

    CHAPTER IV 2010

  • Once you get above chapter book level, it seems like almost all new fiction for kids is (or wants to be) thrilling, exciting, harum-scarum, suspenseful, non-stop, etc.

    My new secret boyfriend Roger Sutton 2009

  • The courts affirmed this limited and narrow understanding until the New Deal, when Congress began to regulate harum-scarum and the Supreme Court inflated the clause into a general license for anything a majority happened to favor.

    The Constitutional Moment 2011

  • "It used to be more harum-scarum, but now people are a lot safer," he said.

    Workplace Fatalities Declined Last Year 2010

  • He took a vacation to Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, with “an attractive companion,” and made another trip home, where my grandfather noticed what he called a “sweet reasonableness” interrupted only by a moment of high tension “due possibly to the three harum-scarum children who were visiting.”

    Into the Story DAVID MARANISS 2010

  • He took a vacation to Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, with “an attractive companion,” and made another trip home, where my grandfather noticed what he called a “sweet reasonableness” interrupted only by a moment of high tension “due possibly to the three harum-scarum children who were visiting.”

    Into the Story DAVID MARANISS 2010

Comments

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  • Intellesting. I didn't know this was a real word. It's quite a famous fife tune.

    Well, if I'd thought about it at all, I might have figured someone named it that for a reason...

    October 16, 2007

  • Hmm. Is there a fife tune called pell-mell, too?

    I think this came from "hare 'em, scare 'em" originally. "Hare it" once meant "to run with great speed" (like a rabbit or hare). You ask me, the "scare 'em" part should have come first, though. :-)

    October 16, 2007

  • Uhh... No. At least, not that I know of. There are some with pretty doofy titles though.

    Edit: see also harum scarum, for an example. I've also seen it spelled "harem scarem."

    October 16, 2007

  • My little harum-scarum beauty knows not what strange histories every woman living, who has had the least independence of will, could tell her, were such to be as communicative as she is...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 17, 2007

  • Delightful as she was in other people's houses, she was still more naively fascinating in her own quaint and somewhat harum-scarum domicile...

    - Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, ch. 2

    July 31, 2008

  • Harum-scarum gusts of wind turned the leaves this way and that.

    - William Steig, Farmer Palmer's Wagon Ride

    September 21, 2008