Word.ws English Dictionary

raffish

/ˈɹæfɪʃ/

raffish adjective: characterized by careless unconventionality; rakish.

Adjective

raffish (comparative more raffish, superlative most raffish)

  1. Characterized by careless unconventionality; rakish.
    • Billie Eilish wants you to know she is in charge, brash and self-assured enough to scrap the raffish image that helped garner her a world of fans in favor of something a little more … adult.2021 May 4, Ruth La Ferla, “On That Bombshell Billie Eilish Cover for British Vogue”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • The smokers' most raffish outsider, Comstock, appeared to do nothing but smoke; Chris had never seen him inside the building.2022, Jennifer Egan, “i, the Protagonist”, in The Candy House
  2. Low-class; disreputable; vulgar.
    • I had met the man before this in the village, and detested him on sight; there was something indescribably raffish in his looks and ways that raised my gorge; […]1891 February–December, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter XV, in In the South Seas […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1896, →OCLC
    • He bowed cordially to the lady in charge of Miss de Barral’s education, whom he saw in the hall engaged in conversation with a very good-looking but somewhat raffish young gentleman.1914, Joseph Conrad, “The Governess”, in Chance, London: Methuen, →OCLC

raffish meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

raffish in Bengali

অমার্জিত কিন্তু আকর্ষণীয়, লম্পট

raffish in Malayalam

unconventional, rakish. bohemian, devil-may-care
ദുർവൃത്തമായ, ദുഷ്പേരുണ്ടാക്കുന്ന, ആഭാസമായ, സദാചാരനിഷ്ഠയില്ലാത്ത, ആചാരവിധേയനല്ലാത്ത, താന്തോന്നിയായ

raffish in Kannada

ಒಚ್ಚಿಯ, ಕೆಟ್ಟಹೆಸರಿನ, ಅಯೋಗ್ಯನಂತೆ ಕಾಣುವ

Forms of raffish

comparativemore raffish
superlativemost raffish

Origin of raffish

From late 18th century raff (“persons among the lowest class in society”) + -ish, still retained in contemporary English with riffraff. From Old French raffer (“to wear away”), of Germanic origin. Compare German raffen. Compare rip (“to tear”), rap (“to snatch”).

Words formed from raffish

Questions about raffish

What does raffish mean?
Raffish means characterized by careless unconventionality; rakish.
What is raffish in Bengali?
Raffish in Bengali is অমার্জিত কিন্তু আকর্ষণীয়, লম্পট. See Raffish meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is raffish?
Raffish is an adjective.
How do you pronounce raffish?
Raffish is pronounced /ˈɹæfɪʃ/.

Words near raffish in the dictionary

  1. raffing
  2. raffinosaccharide
  3. raffinosaccharides
  4. raffinose
  5. raffinoses
  6. raffish
  7. raffishly
  8. raffishness
  9. raffle
  10. raffle sale
  11. raffle sales

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raffish (page history and authors); raffish (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); raffish (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); raffish (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-raffish.wav.

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