Word.ws English Dictionary

rakehell

/ˈɹeɪkhɛl/

rakehell adjective: immoral; dissolute.

Adjective

rakehell (comparative more rakehell, superlative most rakehell)

  1. (archaic) Immoral; dissolute.
    • And farre away, amid their rakehell bands, / They spide a Lady left all succourlesse […].1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
    • I knew from the beginning that I would have to move fast to keep Minnie to myself. Kansas City was full of rakehell bachelors, all of whom I had to outcourt.1982, Roy Wilkins, Tom Mathews, Standing Fast: The Autobiography of Roy Wilkins - Volume 10, page 79
    Synonyms:
    rakehelly

Noun

rakehell (plural rakehells)

  1. (archaic) A lewd or wanton person; a debauchee; a rake.
    • It seldom doth happen, in any way of life, that a sluggard and a rakehell do not go together.a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number)”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: A[braham] J[ohn]...
    • And indeed I believe the insolence of this creature will ruin her master at last, by driving away men of sobriety and business, and making the place a den of vagabonds and rakehells.1725, Daniel Defoe, Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business

Examples of rakehell in a sentence

  • “It is some freak of that drunken rakehell,” said Albert, in a low voice, to his sister, who had crept out after him on tiptoe.1826, [Walter Scott], chapter XXXII, in Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James...
  • A fat little bookseller in the City, a rakehell wit of noble blood, and a rugged Scotch surgeon from the navy—[…]c. 1906, Arthur Conan Doyle, Through the Magic Door:

Synonyms of rakehell

Forms of rakehell

Adjective
comparativemore rakehell
superlativemost rakehell
alternative formrake-hell
Noun
pluralrakehells

Origin of rakehell

From to rake (out) hell (“to search through hell thoroughly”), in the sense of a person so evil or immoral that they cannot be found in hell even after an extensive search: see rake (“to search through (thoroughly)”). Compare rakeshame.

Words formed from rakehell

Questions about rakehell

What does rakehell mean?
Rakehell means immoral; dissolute.
How do you use rakehell in a sentence?
“It is some freak of that drunken rakehell,” said Albert, in a low voice, to his sister, who had crept out after him on tiptoe.
What part of speech is rakehell?
Rakehell can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce rakehell?
Rakehell is pronounced /ˈɹeɪkhɛl/ (UK).

Words near rakehell in the dictionary

  1. raked up
  2. rakedst
  3. rakee
  4. rakeful
  5. rakefuls
  6. rakehell
  7. rakehellish
  8. rakehells
  9. rakehelly
  10. rakehoe
  11. rakehoes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rakehell (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.

Last updated:

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