VividLex

Home / Thesaurus / larrikin

Thesaurus: larrikin

A rowdy street loafer; a rowdyish or noisy ill-bred fellow; -- variously applied, as to a street blackguard, a street Arab, a youth given to horse-play, etc. [Australia & Eng.] -- a. Rowdy; rough; disorderly. [Australia …

Full dictionary entry Search Lens associations

Related headwords

Definitions

  1. A rowdy street loafer; a rowdyish or noisy ill-bred fellow; -- variously applied, as to a street blackguard, a street Arab, a youth given to horse-play, etc. [Australia & Eng.] -- a. Rowdy; rough; disorderly. [Australia & Eng.] Mobs of unruly larrikins. Sydney Daily Telegraph. Larrikin is often popularly explained by the following anecdote (which is without foundation): An Irish policeman at Melbourne, on bringing a notorious rough into court, was asked by the magistrate what the prisoner had been doing, and replied, "He was a-larrikin' [i. e., a-larking] about the streets."
  2. A rowdy street loafer; a rowdyish or noisy ill-bred fellow; --variously applied, as to a street blackguard, a street Arab, a youthgiven to horse-play, etc. [Australia & Eng.] -- a.