Word.ws English Dictionary

ragamuffin

/ˈɹæɡəˌmʌfɪn/

ragamuffin noun: a dirty, shabbily-clothed child; an urchin. Also the alternative letter-case form of Ragamuffin.

Noun (1)

ragamuffin (plural ragamuffins)

  1. A dirty, shabbily-clothed child; an urchin.
    • I haue led my rag of Muffins where they are pepper'd: there's not three of my 150 left aliue; and they for the Townes end, to beg during life.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • “But may I inquire how you intend to support the establishment? If all the pupils are little ragamuffins, I’m afraid your crop won’t be profitable in a worldly sense, Mrs. Bhaer.”1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, “Harvest Time”, in Little Women: […], 2nd part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 348
  2. (slang) A hooligan or troublemaker.

Noun (2) capitalized: Ragamuffin

Ragamuffin (plural Ragamuffins)

  1. A domestic cat of a particular heavy, muscular, short-necked breed.

Also used as

ragamuffin is also the alternative letter-case form of Ragamuffin.

Examples of ragamuffin in a sentence

  • 'Yes, he is mine—I took him, a homeless little ragamuffin, but I saw what was in him, and I said his name would be heard some day—behold him, observe him—was I right?'1882, Mark Twain, chapter 12, in The Prince and the Pauper:
  • After walking a ways, Jurgis met a little ragamuffin whom he hailed: "Hey, sonny!"1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XVIII, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906...
  • He had found out the house of Frau von Einem without much trouble, and had performed with his ragamuffins in the servants' quarters.1916, John Buchan, chapter 15, in Greenmantle:
  • A boy of the cheery gypsy ragamuffin variety.1984, Douglas Adams, chapter 21, in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), page 112:

Forms of ragamuffin

pluralragamuffins
alternative formraggamuffin
pluralRagamuffins

Origin of ragamuffin

From the Middle English Ragamuffyn. Of uncertain origin, according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: A muffin is a poor thing of a creature, a ‘regular muff’; so that a ragamuffin is a sorry creature in rags.

Words formed from ragamuffin

Questions about ragamuffin

What does ragamuffin mean?
Ragamuffin means a dirty, shabbily-clothed child; an urchin.
How do you use ragamuffin in a sentence?
'Yes, he is mine—I took him, a homeless little ragamuffin, but I saw what was in him, and I said his name would be heard some day—behold him, observe him—was I right?'
What part of speech is ragamuffin?
Ragamuffin is a noun.
How do you pronounce ragamuffin?
Ragamuffin is pronounced /ˈɹæɡəˌmʌfɪn/.
What is the plural of ragamuffin?
The plural of ragamuffin is ragamuffins.

Words near ragamuffin in the dictionary

  1. ragabrash
  2. ragabrashes
  3. ragalike
  4. ragam
  5. ragams
  6. ragamuffin
  7. ragamuffinism
  8. ragamuffinly
  9. ragamuffins
  10. Ragan
  11. Ragan Almacen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ragamuffin (page history and authors); Ragamuffin (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: en-us-ragamuffin.ogg, en-au-ragamuffin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ragamuffin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ragamuffin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.