rakish
/ˈɹeɪkɪʃ/
rakish adjective: dashingly, carelessly, or sportingly unconventional or stylish; jaunty; characterized by a devil-may-care unconventionality; having a somewhat disreputable quality or appearance.
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.
- 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...1889, Jerome K. Jerome, chapter 18, in Three Men in a Boat […]
- 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.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 5, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850...
- 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.1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 14, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC
rakish meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Vietnamese
rakish in Tamil
- கப்பல்வகையில் சாய்ந்த பாய்மரங்களையுடைய, விரைந்து செல்லுந் தோற்றமுடைய, கடற்பெகாள்ளைக் கப்பலின் தோற்றமுடைய, மிடுக்கான, செயல் வீறுடைய, விரைசெயல் தோற்றமுடைய
rakish in Urdu
- عیاش, البیلا, بانکا, لچا, رند
rakish in Malayalam
- debonair, dashing, stylish
- വിഷയാസക്തനായ, വിടനായ, നല്ലപെരുമാറ്റരീതിയുള്ള, ഡാംഭികനായ, അലങ്കാരപ്രിയനായ, മോടിക്കാരനായ
rakish in Vietnamese
- dashingly stylish
- phóng đãng, ngang tàng
Examples of rakish in a sentence
- 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.1904 March 26, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y....
- […]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.1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC:
- […] 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."2007 June 8, Houston Chronicle:
- Jarvis Cocker and Russell Brand have both found fame as rakish British iconoclasts.2009 August 4, Dan Martin, “Jarvis Cocker writes songs for Russell Brand”, in The Guardian:
Synonyms of rakish
Forms of rakish
| comparative | more rakish |
|---|---|
| superlative | most rakish |
Origin of rakish
From rake (“man habituated to immoral conduct”) + -ish.
Words formed from rakish
Questions about rakish
- What does rakish mean?
- Rakish means dashingly, carelessly, or sportingly unconventional or stylish; jaunty; characterized by a devil-may-care unconventionality; having a somewhat disreputable quality or appearance.
- What is rakish in Tamil?
- Rakish in Tamil is கப்பல்வகையில் சாய்ந்த பாய்மரங்களையுடைய, விரைந்து செல்லுந் தோற்றமுடைய, கடற்பெகாள்ளைக் கப்பலின் தோற்றமுடைய. See Rakish meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use rakish in a sentence?
- 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.
- What part of speech is rakish?
- Rakish is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce rakish?
- Rakish is pronounced /ˈɹeɪkɪʃ/.
Words near rakish in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rakish (page history and authors); rakish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rakish (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rakish (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rakish.wav.
Cite this entry: “rakish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rakish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.