Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To sweep; snatch, draw, or huddle together; take by a promiscuous sweep.
  • noun A promiscuous heap or collection; a jumble; a medley.
  • noun Trashy material; lumber; rubbish; refuse.
  • noun Abundance; affluence.
  • noun A worthless or disorderly person; a rowdy; a scapegrace: now applied to students of Oxford by the townspeople.
  • noun Collectively, worthless persons; the scum or sweepings of society; the rabble. Compare riffraff.
  • Idle; dissolute.

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

  • transitive verb obsolete To sweep, snatch, draw, or huddle together; to take by a promiscuous sweep.
  • noun A promiscuous heap; a jumble; a large quantity; lumber; refuse.
  • noun The sweepings of society; the rabble; the mob; -- chiefly used in the compound or duplicate, riffraff.
  • noun A low fellow; a churl.
  • noun [Prov. Eng.] a dealer in lumber and odd refuse.

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

  • noun A promiscuous heap; a jumble; a large quantity; lumber; refuse.
  • noun The common rabble or mob; riffraff.
  • noun A low fellow; a churl.

Etymologies

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