Crossword clues for blackguard
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Blackguard \Black"guard`\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blackguarded;
p. pr. & vb. n. Blackguarding.]
To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.
--Southey.
Blackguard \Black"guard\ (bl[a^]g"g[aum]rd), n. [Black + guard.]
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The scullions and lower menials of a court, or of a nobleman's household, who, in a removal from one residence to another, had charge of the kitchen utensils, and being smutted by them, were jocularly called the ``black guard''; also, the servants and hangers-on of an army.
A lousy slave, that . . . rode with the black guard in the duke's carriage, 'mongst spits and dripping pans.
--Webster (1612). The criminals and vagrants or vagabonds of a town or community, collectively. [Obs.]
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A person of stained or low character, esp. one who uses scurrilous language, or treats others with foul abuse; a scoundrel; a rough.
A man whose manners and sentiments are decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard.
--Macaulay. A vagrant; a bootblack; a gamin. [Obs.]
Blackguard \Black"guard\, a. Scurrilous; abusive; low; worthless; vicious; as, blackguard language.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1530s, scullion, kitchen knave. Perhaps once an actual military or guard unit; more likely originally a mock-military reference to scullions and kitchen-knaves of noble households, of black-liveried personal guards, and of shoeblacks. By 1736, sense had emerged of "one of the criminal class." Hence the adjectival use (1784), "of low or worthless character."
Wiktionary
n. (context dated English) A scoundrel; an unprincipled contemptible person; an untrustworthy person. vb. To revile or abuse in scurrilous language.
WordNet
n. someone who is morally reprehensible; "you dirty dog" [syn: cad, bounder, dog, hound, heel]
v. subject to laughter or ridicule; "The satirists ridiculed the plans for a new opera house"; "The students poked fun at the inexperienced teacher"; "His former students roasted the professor at his 60th birthday" [syn: ridicule, roast, guy, laugh at, jest at, rib, make fun, poke fun]
use foul or abusive language towards; "The actress abused the policeman who gave her a parking ticket"; "The angry mother shouted at the teacher" [syn: abuse, clapperclaw, shout]
Wikipedia
Blackguard (pronounced blaggard) is a rather old-fashioned term for a scoundrel.
Blackguard or Black Guard(s) may also refer to:
Blackguard is a melodic death metal band from Montréal, Québec, previously known as Profugus Mortis.
Usage examples of "blackguard".
Anna said, a little mollified the blackguard was finally assisting her.
And curious too to see that George Prine, the blackguard Viscount Rutledge, had joined his party tonight.
Jubber presented, to all appearance, the most scoundrelly aspect that humanity can assume, when he was clothed in his evening uniform, and illuminated by his own circus lamplight, he nevertheless reached an infinitely loftier climax of blackguard perfection when he was arrayed in his private costume, and was submitted to the tremendous ordeal of pure daylight.
He was a gentleman,--so is a first-class Indian,--a very noble gentleman in point of courage, lofty bearing, courtesy, but an unsoaped, illclad, turbulent, high-tempered young fellow, looked up to by his crowd very much as the champion of the heavy weights is looked up to by his gang of blackguards.
Either the top brass had been optimistic in believing that we had mounted overwhelming force against a small, not fully developed Bug baseor the Blackguards had been awarded the spot where the roof fell in.
Zim got them to the surface, before the Blackguards were relieved and retrieved.
How did we know they were not on for piracy, their ship looked like a pirate, they looked like blackguards, to a man.
The poor, conceited blackguards of this ungracious earth have a fancy that there must be huge confusion and a mighty bobbery in nature, corresponding with that which is for ever going on in their own little spheres.
Is it true what little Hueh says, that both the blackguards fought you at once?
The gamekeepers, the fifty hay-makers in the great meadow, they were to enter the town from the top of Church Street, where they were to gather all the boys and blackguards they could.
Richard saw reason to deeply regret that the youth had been put to clerking in the first instance, and not rather trained for some handicraft, clerkships being about the least hopeful of positions for a working-class lad of small parts and pronounced blackguard tendencies.
Blott dashed in and listened to General Burnett fulminating from the Grange about blackguards in Whitehall, red tape, green belts and bluestockings, none of which he fully understood.
I'm supposed to be the cantankerous blackguard who makes the boss look good.
I knew very well that the girls were impostors, and their gentlemanuncle a blackguard.
He thought, always, of causalities, and it was not impossible that he thought me—hence his little disquisition on empiricism—a blackguard and betrayer.