''rakish'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

rakish - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

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.
  • ✤ Synonyms: raffish, jaunty
  • ✤ a hat worn at a rakish angle
  • ✤ I did not catch what was going on at first, and was, therefore, extremely surprised at noticing George hurriedly smooth out his trousers, ruffle up his hair, and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back of his head, and then, assuming an expression of mingled affability and sadness, sit down in a graceful attitude, and try to hide his feet.¹
  • ✤ A little later a rakish young workman, with a goatee beard and a swagger, lit his clay pipe at the lamp before descending into the street.²
  • ✤ […] Anne, who had dropped into her seat, gasping for breath, with a forgotten lily wreath hanging askew over one ear and giving her a particularly rakish and disheveled appearance.³
  • ✤ […] 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.”⁴
  • ✤ Jarvis Cocker and Russell Brand have both found fame as rakish British iconoclasts.⁵
  • ✤ Harold Gould as Kid Twist (with a great mustache) wore the best Homburg in recent memory, and Redford always kept his fedora atilt at just the right, rakish angle.⁶
  • ✤ If rakish dukes were one’s thing.⁷
• (dated) Like a rake; dissolute; profligate.
  • ✤ 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.⁸
  • ✤ 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.⁹
  • ✤ The arduous task of converting a rakish lover.¹⁰

Etymology

From rake (“man habituated to immoral conduct”) + -ish.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɹeɪkɪʃ/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-09-15.

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Footnotes

1. 1889, Jerome K. Jerome, chapter 18, in *Three Men in a Boat […] * ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

2. 1904 March 26, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC: ↩

3. 1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC: ↩

4. 2007 June 8, Houston Chronicle: ↩

5. 2009 August 4, Dan Martin, “Jarvis Cocker writes songs for Russell Brand”, in The Guardian ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

6. 2020 August 28, Thomas Vinciguerra, “Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love ‘The Sting’”, in The New York Times ‎${}^{[3]}$, →ISSN: ↩

7. 2020 December 25, Chris Van Dusen, “Diamond of the First Water”, in Bridgerton, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Eloise Bridgerton: ↩

8. 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC: ↩

9. 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 14, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC: ↩

10. 1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, 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: ↩