different between rascality vs rascal

English

Etymology

From rascal +? -ity.

Noun

rascality (countable and uncountable, plural rascalities)

1. Rascals collectively; the rabble, the masses.
2. The behavior of a rascal; the quality of being a rascal.
   • 1860, George Eliot, Mill on the Floss, Book III, Chapter VII,

     On an a priori view of Wakem's aquiline nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not more rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this too along with his nose, might have become fraught with damnatory meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 7, [1]

     The verdict of the sea quid nuncs has been cited only by way of showing what sort of moral impression the man made upon rude uncultivated natures whose conceptions of human wickedness were necessarily of the narrowest, limited to ideas of vulgar rascality,—a thief among the swinging hammocks during a night-watch, or the man brokers and land-sharks of the sea-ports.

   The two of them engaged in all kinds of rascality in college.

Anagrams

• sacrality, satyrical, scalarity

English

Etymology

Recorded since c.1330, as Middle English rascaile (“people of the lowest class, rabble of an army”), derived from 12th century Old French rascaille (“outcast, rabble”) (modern French racaille), perhaps from rasque (“mud, filth, scab, dregs”), from Vulgar Latin *rasic? (“to scrape”). The singular form is first attested in 1461; the present extended sense of "low, dishonest person" is from early 1586.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????skl?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??æskl?/
• Rhymes: -??sk?l, -æsk?l

Noun

rascal (plural rascals)

1. A dishonest person; a rogue, a scoundrel, a trickster.
2. Sometimes diminutive: a cheeky person or creature; a troublemaker.

3. (Papua New Guinea) A member of a criminal gang.

Synonyms

• (dishonest person; rogue): see Thesaurus:villain
• (cheeky person): devil, imp, mischief-maker, scamp, scoundrel; see also Thesaurus:troublemaker

Translations

Adjective

rascal (comparative more rascal, superlative most rascal)

1. (archaic) Low; lowly, part of or belonging to the common rabble.

Translations

Derived terms

• rascality
• rascally
• rascalry

Further reading

• Rascal in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Claars, craals, lascar, sacral, sarlac, scalar