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Scamp

noun
1.
One who is playfully mischievous.  Synonyms: imp, monkey, rapscallion, rascal, scalawag, scallywag.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scamp" Quotes from Famous Books



... dared kick the fellow out of the house," thought Prince Duncan. "He is a low scamp, and I don't like the ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger

... you look so black upon this beautiful morning, Macumazahn?" asked the genial old scamp. "Have you lost ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... he wrote it himself, and all this is a dodge gotten up by a clever young scamp," grumbled ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster

... architect, that you have nothing to do but pick up your brushes and come at once. Prices are arranged to please you. I am off to Italy with my wife; so you can have Mistigris to help you along. The young scamp has talent, and I put him at your disposal. He is twittering like a sparrow at the very idea of amusing himself ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... "And Gus, the young scamp we used to own; you haven't forgotten him? He is back here, a member of the company of negro troops, and parades before the house every day to show off his uniform. Dr. Cameron told him yesterday he'd thrash him if he caught him hanging around the place again. ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... take cautiously: the doctor has a patient who wears black and does not raise her veil. Why, it is the typical mysterious lady! Then the good doctor comes across Arnold Armstrong, who was a graceless scamp—de mortuis—what's the rest of it?—and he is quarreling with a lady in black. Behold, says the doctor, they ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... turns whistling, scratching himself, and swinging his feet in enormous tattered boots, persistently stared at him. 'And his master,' thought Aratov, 'is waiting for him, no doubt, while he, lazy scamp, is kicking up ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... is; and the best game of all will be neck and crop for that young scamp. A bully, a coward, a puling milksop, is all the character he beareth. He giveth himself born airs, as if every inch of the Riding belonged to him. He hath all the viciousness of Yordas, without the pluck to face it out. A ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... She declared that, after all, it was her fault—to have treated me as if I were a man, and to have given me too much money. I shook my head, but she would have it she was to blame, and then said of a sudden, "Are you in debt, you scamp? Did John pray for me!" I replied that I owed no one a penny, and that she had not been remembered. She was glad I was not in debt, and added, "Never play unless you have the means to pay. I have been very foolish. That uneasy woman, Bessy Ferguson, must needs tell ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... scamp. Here is his cousin entirely devoted to him, loving him above everything else in this world, and yet he has not even paid her a visit, except in passing through to Yorktown with his command. He ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... Stratford history comes easy. The historian builds it out of the surmised deer-steeling, and the surmised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised vengeance-prompted satire upon the magistrate in the play: result, the young Shakespeare was a wild, wild, wild, oh, SUCH a wild young scamp, and that gratuitous slander is established for all time! It is the very way Professor Osborn and I built the colossal skeleton brontosaur that stands fifty-seven feet long and sixteen feet high in the Natural History Museum, the awe and admiration ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... make a straight dash over to the girl! Whoop!" Before she could understand from his face the strange change in his voice, he had dashed out of the room. In a moment he reappeared with the boy struggling in his arms. "Think of the little scamp not knowing his own brother!" he laughed, giving the boy a really affectionate, if slightly exaggerated hug, "and expecting me to open my arms to the first little boy who jumps into them! I've a great mind not to give him the present I fetched all the way from California. Wait a moment." ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... instincts and efforts to keep her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the tempter and beguiler of poor Dick; and, above all, the dear dog Scamp, with his knowing ways and soft brown eyes, are all as true to life and as touchingly set forth as any heart could desire, beguiling the reader into smiles and tears, and into ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... good a death for such a scamp', said the Troll. 'No! let's first burn out his eyes, and then turn him adrift in ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... Benjamin White, as an antidote to yellow journalism. One is forced to admit that up to the present yellow journalism seems to be competing against it with a certain measure of success. Headlines are still of as generous a size as heretofore, and there is no tendency on the part of editors to scamp the details ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... her; the other Santiago—that was Dolores's son—drove us there in the veloche. Wasn't it curious, his name should be the same as the city's? But he was a bad boy, Santiago,—so mischievous! such a scamp! Father had to whip him many times; and once the vigilantes took him up, and would have put him in the chain-gang, for cutting an American sailor with a knife, in the Calle de San Francisco, if father had not paid five ounces, and become security for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... one of the most rabid Confederate sheets in Richmond. I inquired where the New Nation was sold. They said nowhere, unless a few "niggers" might be found selling it on, the street. One of them poured forth a long catalogue of epithets: "Arrant liar," "reckless villain," and finally a "crazy scamp." ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... scamp!" said the schoolmaster, who had evidently been stretching his legs, on the old principle, not a few times during the journey. "I'll have consolation for this out of somebody, Nickleby, if Mrs. Squeers don't hunt him down. So I give you ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... huh!" Polly tried to look indignant. "He's a scamp, and old Doctor Rivers was the ruination of him. The old doctor used to quote Scripture in a scandalous way. He said since we have the poor always with us, it is up to us to have a place for them where they can be comfortable. Terrible doctrine, I say, but that was what the old ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... almost always good-natured; and if I had to decide between you and the Baron, I should choose you. Monsieur Hulot is amusing, handsome, and has a figure; but you, you are substantial, and then—you see—you look an even greater scamp ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... particular business at a ferry slip in Dublin, waiting for the boat. A boy, also waiting for it, several times came up to shew some books he had for sale, and really annoyed my friend by importunity, who suddenly turned round and exclaimed, "Get away, you scamp, or I shall give you a kick that will send you across the river." In an instant the reply came—"Whi-thin thank yur hanur fur thit same—fur 'twill just save me a ha-pinny." They are quick to a degree—and have great activity and ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers

... collect it, you may have it," said Gates. "I don't care much for the money, but I should like to have the scamp compelled ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger

... justice, dancing about the room, first on one leg, then on the other, like a cat upon hot bricks, "so you would be excited, if your life were worried out, as mine is, over a wicked scamp of a son. Why can't folks trouble their heads about their own business, and let my affairs alone? A pity but what he was hung, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... glory. Posthumous ambition perhaps requires an atmosphere of roses; and the more rugged excitant of Wick east winds had made another boy of me. To go down in the diving-dress, that was my absorbing fancy; and with the countenance of a certain handsome scamp of a diver, Bob Bain by ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... beautifully woven with various colors, is quite showy at a distance. Among the Mexicans there is no working class (the Indians being practically serfs, and doing all the hard work); and every rich man looks like a grandee, and every poor scamp like a broken-down gentleman. I have often seen a man with a fine figure and courteous manners, dressed in broadcloth and velvet, with a noble horse completely covered with trappings, without ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... wiping his eyes pathetically with a red handkerchief; "he's an ungrateful young scamp. He's set my little daughter Rose ag'inst me,—she that set everything by me till he made her believe all sorts of lies ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr

... young scamp! Do you want to be impeached for a prejudiced witness? You want to help Heath, not to hurt him; and let me tell you, he will need strong friends and shrewd helpers, before we see him a free ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... blindly fluttered its wings. "You never loved him as I do! What do I care about the estate? I wish it were sold! D'you think I like living here? D'you think I've ever liked it? D'you think I've ever——" But she did not finish that saying: D'you think I've ever loved you? "My boy a scamp! I've heard you laugh and shake your head and say a hundred times: 'Young men will be young men!' You think I don't know how you'd all go on if you dared! You think I don't know how you talk among yourselves! As for gambling, you'd gamble too, if you weren't afraid! And now George ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... "The young scamp!" the fisherman said angrily. "Nothing will do for him but to go a-climbing up the cliffs this morning; and just after you left us, news comes that the young varmint had fallen down and twisted his foot, and doctor says it will ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... so persistent, so clamorous. Anacreon burned with a flame Candescently, crescently amorous. You rascal, you're doing the same! Was no fairer the flame that burned Ilium. Cheer up, you're a fortunate scamp, ... Consider avuncular William And ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams

... Desroches, "you have made an utter fool of him, and he is furious. The scamp will stop at nothing to get his revenge upon you—for he'll lose everything if he forces you to fling your barrister's gown, as they say, to the nettles and go ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... ago a sharp-witted scamp appeared in one of the European countries, and offered for sale a pill, which he declared to be a sure protection against earthquakes. Absurd as was the assertion, he sold large quantities of his nostrum, and grew rich on the proceeds. The credulity which enriched this man, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... exquisite and elegant scamp Bononcini, who was the great rival of Haendel in the London operatic war, I find no amorous gossip, though Hawkins says he was the favourite of the Duchess of Marlborough, who gave him a pension of L500 per year, and had him live ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... was too much for him. However, the delay was sufficient. I took a race and a good leap; the ropes were cast off; the steam-tug gave a puff, and we started. Suddenly the captain was up to me: 'Where did you come from, you scamp, and what do ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... of which Dr. Johnson chose the other side. The Doctor being sans question a landsman, he never saw, we warrant, any resemblance to fore and main and mizzen in the three spires of Litchfield. But the Doctor, not being a scamp, was not compelled to choose. Many another is not so well off. Like little boys who are sent to school, they learn what they learn from pretty much the same motive. Sometimes they turn out good and gallant men; but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... streaming,—no wonder Phil Elderkin, who was tall of his age, thought her handsome. So it happened that the inquisitive Reuben, not finding any cloven feet in his furtive observations, but encountering always either the rosy Suke, or "Scamp," (which was Nat's pet fighting-dog,) or the shoemaker, or the round-faced Mr. Boody himself, could justify and explain his aunt's charge of the tavern wickedness only by distributing it over them all. And when, one Sunday, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... said the Doctor, a little impatiently, for it was only the morrow of the parade. "I should think your patience would be exhausted. The scamp has been in more mischief than any other boy in the school. He's ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... the small boy from behind, rushing forward. "Touch one of these deer, and the dog'll have ye! We've got two deer, but we've lost our horse,—scamp rode him away,—and ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... principle of all that we do, the controlling power that restrains and limits and stimulates and impels. And then men will know where to have us, and will be sure, and rightly sure, that we shall not shirk our obligations, nor scamp our work, nor neglect our duties. And being thus full of faith, and counted faithful by Him, we need care little what men's judgments of us may be, and need desire no better epitaph ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... be watcht as Witches are. One of the tests to which beldames suspected of sorcery were put— a mode particularly favoured by that arch-scamp, Matthew Hopkins, 'Witch-Finder General'— was to tie down the accused in some painful or at least uneasy posture for twenty-four hours, during which time relays of watchers sat round. It was supposed that an imp would ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... a miserable," she said, bitterly, "a drunken, worthless scamp, but until now I did not know you were a murderer. Yes, comrades, this man with whom you sit and smoke is a miserable assassin. Yesterday evening he tried to take the life of Arnold Dampierre here, whom you all know as a friend of freedom and a hater of tyranny. This brave companion ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... impatient of the ordinary conventionalities of civilized life. Since this miraculous thing had come to pass—that he, Caspar Brooke, a respectable, sane, healthy-minded man of middle-age, could be accused of killing a miserable young scamp like Oliver Trent in a moment of passion—the world had certainly seemed somewhat crazy and out of joint. It was not worth while to stand very much on ceremony at such a conjuncture; and if Rosalind Romaine wanted to talk to him about her dead brother, ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... charmer was restrained by the scandalous publicity with which this lady was receiving his mysterious insinuations. Ferragut spoke of knocking the scamp down on his oyster shells with a good ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... scamp! I can't afford to feed you on diamonds from my sacred ring! Did you get your greedy nature from some sable Dodonean ancestress? If we had lived three thousand years ago, I might be superstitious, and construe your freak into an ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... see me to-day, on what he called 'important business.' He is a crony of my constable. He had a cock and bull story about that lady at Killimaga, who goes to your church. I guess the constable told it to him. I gave him no satisfaction because there was nothing in it that concerned me; but the old scamp thinks it might hurt you, so he gave it to Brinn, who will publish it if you don't drop ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... by different standards. Where the pretension is higher, the test may justly be more severe. But I say it is unfair to puzzle out with diligence the one or two good things in the character of a reckless scamp, and to refuse moderate attention to the many good points about a weak, narrow-minded, and uncharitable good person. I ask for charity in the estimating of all human characters,—even in estimating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... assist me in a moment of great distress, had won ten thousand sequins in four evenings: I had received five thousand for my share; and lost no time in paying my debts and in redeeming all the articles which I had been compelled to pledge. That scamp brought me back the smiles of Fortune, and from that moment I got rid of the ill luck which had seemed to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... born to ill-luck, Tom," he went on; "for some scamp or other robbed me of my little savings as soon as I reached London, and I had to make shift to pay my fare down here. It is a long story to tell how I found you out. I went to the old place first, and they sent me on here. I had a drop of beer ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... whether this man is a blackguard. I believe he is. My uncle knows something about his father, and says that a bigger scamp ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... was committed?" he said eagerly. "Surely you can see it all for yourself, since you admit the 'nephew'—a scamp, perhaps—who sponges on the good-natured woman. He terrorises and threatens her, so much so that she fancies her money is no longer safe even in the Birkbeck Bank. Women of that class are apt at times to mistrust the Bank of England. Anyway, she withdraws her money. Who knows what she meant ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... Petichka Little Bird Steyne, Worthing. Sir Andrew Deek II. Wild One Sir Andrew Judd's Commercial School. Somerset Churnie kesoi One eye A Somerset School. Tiger Mukaka Monkey Bournemouth School. Tom Stareek Old Man Woodbridge. Tua r Golleniai Julik Scamp Intermediate School, Cardiff. Vic Glinie Long Nose Modern, Southport. Whitgift Mamuke Rabchick Little Grouse Whitgift Grammar. Winston Borup Borup Winston Higher Grade School (cost of transport). Meduate Lion N.Z. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... around The board: "He speaks the truth!" cried some; "In her the flower o' the sex is found!" And all the swaggerers were dumb. And now!—I could tear my hair with vexation. And dash out my brains in desperation! With turned-up nose each scamp may face me, With sneers and stinging taunts disgrace me, And, like a bankrupt debtor sitting, A chance-dropped word may set me sweating! Yet, though I thresh them all together, I cannot ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... Christian as by a lord, as much by a demagogue as by a footman, and not all the copy-book maxims ever set for ink stained youth will make him respected. Appearances are everything, so far as human opinion goes, and the man who will walk down Piccadilly arm in arm with the most notorious scamp in London, provided he is a well-dressed one, will slink up a back street to say a couple of words to a seedy-looking gentleman. And the seedy-looking gentleman knows this—no one better—and will go a mile round to avoid meeting an acquaintance. Those that knew him ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... France soon if his health does not break down under the load she has cast upon him. He warns her to be out of the house on his arrival, because, if she is not, "she will find in him a tyrant." The whole letter is indicative of a low-down unworthy scamp, a mere collection of transparent verbiage, intended as a means of ridding himself of a woman he had nothing in common with, and a cover to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... does and maybe she doesn't. She's a wily little scamp all right. I discovered that the second day out. I'd forbidden her to write any letters to the ranch, so she was keeping a log-book which she was going ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... making it short," retorted Henry, in an injured tone, "for your benefit; if you want to have the whole of it, of course you can. He wasn't a scamp; he was just a scatterbrain—that was the worst you could say against him. He tried to communicate with her, but never got an answer. Then he wrote to the father, and told him frankly the whole story. The letter came back six months later, marked—'Gone away; left no address.' You see, what ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome

... who was just then lounging past us, jump into the gutter and soil his polished patent leathers in nervous alarm. "Glad to see me, you said? Stuff and nonsense, you rascal—you're not half so pleased as I am to clap my eyes on you again! Gad, you young scamp, why, it seems only the other day when I sent you to the mast-head, you remember, when you were a middy with me in the Neptune? It was for cutting off the tail of my dog Ponto, and you said—though that was all moonshine, of course—you did ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... in him. He advised paying the account without regard to its justice, as the shortest and simplest way out of the trouble; but Mrs. Lander, who saw him talking amicably and even respectfully with the landlord, when he ought to have treated him as an extortionate scamp, returned to her former ill opinion of him; and the vice-consul now appeared the friend that Doctor Tradonico had falsely seemed. The doctor consented, in leaving her to her contempt of him, to carry a message to the vice-consul, though he came ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... fire. "Soon after he built his house in the Terrace," she continued, "his daughter, an only child, was burned to death. It was a sad thing,—she was just eighteen. Then a nephew whom he adopted turned out a scamp, and now he ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard

... "'T is one thing to write anonymous letters, but quite another matter to stand up and be counted. As for that scamp Joe—" ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... scandal about him; it was only a year ago that he was rusticated. Such a pity! He was a most clever fellow—good at every thing. And quite a genius for music. To hear him sing and play was delightful! And yet he was such a scamp—a ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... looked—oh, how much handsomer he was than Harry, how much brighter than Alaric!—he had touched her hand, and spoken to her one word of joy at her recovered health. But that had been all. There was a sort of compact, Katie knew, that there should be no other Tudor marriage. Charley was not now the scamp he had been, but still— it was understood that her love was not to ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... her early days, and had been told and had believed that she was loved. But evidence had come to her that her lover was a scamp—a man without morals and without principle; and she had torn herself away from him. And Miss Todd had offered to him money compensation, which the brute had taken; and since that, for his sake, or rather for her love's sake, she had rejected all further matrimonial tenders, and was ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... that young scamp, Gregg, had gone to Mr. Dale, who had never seen you, and by means of the letters stolen from you made him believe that he was the son of his old friend. So delighted was Mr. Dale, that he practically adopted young Gregg. In fact, he was on the point of making the pretended Dave ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood

... been a pupil in the school of adversity so long, that you ought to be able to take misfortunes pretty quietly. There's a balance struck, somehow or other, depend upon it, my girl; and the prosperous people who pay their debts have to suffer, as well as the Macaire family. I'm a scamp and a scoundrel, but I'm your true friend nevertheless, Diana; and you must promise to take my advice. Tell me that ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... serviceableness, and his rogue's humor make him a picturesque character and account for his having become on the stage the most popular figure in the piece; but that Fiesco should be willing to trust himself and his cause to such a scamp, and that such remarkable results should be achieved by the black man's kaleidoscopic activity, brings into the play an element of buffoonery that injures it on the serious side. The daring play of master and man excites a certain ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... all right! Oh, the scoundrel! the thief! the vagabond! the worthless fellow! the seditious scamp! It is his speeches about the government that have sent him there. He is a rebel. I was harbouring a rebel. I am free of him, and lucky for me; he was compromising us. Thrust into prison! Oh, so much the better! ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... "Wish that scamp could only share the fate I have reserved for that accursed Harkaway. However, I can't manage that, so I must be thankful for ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... Hans could bear. He was perfectly cast down, disheartened, and inconsolable. At first, he thought of running after the fellow; and, as he knew the scamp could not go far without a passport, and as Hans had gone the round of the country himself, in the three years of his Wandel-Jahre, as required by the worshipful guild of tailors, he did not doubt but that ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... of the inmates of the house would have recognized Papa Ravinet at this moment; he was literally transfigured. He was no longer the cunning dealer in second-hand articles, the old scamp with the sharp, vulgar face, so well known at all public sales, where he sat in the front rank, watching for good bargains, and keeping cool when all around him were in a state ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... 'em think all this time that you were shot—and poor 'Lias in jail? Well! you always was a mean little scamp, ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson

... him. He had expected to be ushered into some princely dwelling, for he had judged his interlocutor to be some rich and eccentric noble, unless he were an erratic scamp. He was somewhat taken aback by the spectacle that met his eyes. The furniture was scant, and all in the style of the last century. The dust lay half an inch thick on the old gilded ornaments and chandeliers. A great ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... this transaction whom I shall mention openly, is that old scamp and swindler, Gustavus Adolphus, thirteenth Earl of Crabs. This nobleman was one of the gentlemen of His Majesty's closet, and one with whom the revered monarch was on terms of considerable intimacy. A close regard had sprung up between them in the old King's time; when His Royal Highness, playing ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... ball, but extracted. I would be all right if that lazy Irish scamp would only give me half enough to eat. By the way, Wayne, of course I never got the straight of it, for there are half-a-dozen stories about the affair flying around, and those most interested will not ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... morals, free from vice, no dandy, a quiet, bookish, self-denying mortal, was yet, when he took holy orders and quitted his chambers at Cambridge, as much in debt as many a scamp of his college. He had been, perhaps, a little foolish and fanciful in the article of books, and had committed a serious indiscretion in the matter of a carved oak bookcase; and, worse still, he had published a slender volume of poems, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... men! We beg that your servant will engage a person to fit up my apartment; as he is acquainted with the lodgings, he can fix the proper price at once. Do this soon, you Carnival scamp!!!!!!! ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace

... in a state extremely pleasant; That Europe—thanks to royal swords And bayonets, and the Duke commanding— Enjoys a peace which, like the Lord's, Passeth all human understanding: That France prefers her go-cart King To such a coward scamp as BONEY; Tho' round, with each a leading-string. There standeth many a Royal crony, For fear the chubby, tottering thing Should fall, if left there loney-poney;— That England, too, the more her debts, The ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... "You scamp! Leave my boy alone!" screamed Mrs. Bangs. "Oh, John, perhaps you had better run for a policeman!" she added, as Randy let go ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.

... for the sailor, without waiting to see the effect of his summons, threw the knife; and had not his saintship ducked his head, there would have been an end of monkey tricks for that cruise. As the glittering steel passed before the wicked scamp's eyes, the flash deprived him of all recollection of the mischief in hand: with a loud yell he leaped on the booms, and in his terror let the prize slip from his grasp. It fell on the cooming of the hatchway, hung for one instant, and then dashed right ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... them—still they came; and the worst of it is they are reducing our own "riff-raff" to their level. The novelist has written about them; the preacher has preached against them; the drunkards have garbled them over in their mouths, and yelped out "Gipsy," and stuttered "scamp" in disgust; the swearer has sworn at them, and our "gutter-scum gentlemen" have told them to "stand off." These "Jack-o'-th'-Lantern," "Will-o'-th'-Wisp," "Boo-peep," "Moonshine Vagrants," "Ditchbank Sculks," "Hedgerow Rodneys," of whom there are not a few, are black spots upon our horizon, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... over," said Fletcher, quieting instantly. "I didn't mean to scare you that way, but the truth is it put me in a passion to hear of you mixing up with that scamp Blake. Jest keep clear of him and I'll ask nothing more of you. You may chase all your rabbits between here and kingdom come for aught I care, but if I ever see you alongside of Christopher Blake again, I tell you, I'll lick you until you're black and ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... and that young scamp. He's bad, papa; bad all the way through. And you, you dear ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... dinner, and to long stories of the imposture and villany of the Italians. One of them chiefly bewailed himself that the day before, having unwisely eaten a dozen oysters without agreeing first with the oyster-man upon the price, he had been obliged to pay this scamp's extortionate demand to the full, since he was unable to restore him his property. We thought that something like this might have happened to an imprudent man in any country, but we did not the less join him in abusing the Italians—the purpose for ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... thought. Not often did he speak at length, even to me, unless, as it came to be, he was moved by some hap or mishap of camp or trail to tell of the doings of that arch rascal, Yaeethl, the raven, God, Bird, and Scamp. And when, sitting over the fire, or with steering paddle in hand, he did open the gates that lead to the land of legend, he seemed but to listen and repeat the words of Kahn, the fire spirit, who stands between the Northland and ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne

... his son was no longer there to plague him, he began to feel proud of him. "An out and out scamp," he said, with relish. "Never ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan

... there were things which Ned with all his zeal and all his cleverness could not do for him. He was conscious that had he been as remiss in the matter of hunting, as that hard-riding but otherwise idle young scamp, Gerard Maule, he might have succeeded much better than he had hitherto done with Adelaide Palliser. "Hanging about and philandering, that's what they want," he said ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... Fanny with emphasis and a sniff, but not quite the emphasis Dan had asked for. Her coolness did not put him out, though. Fanny had a soft spot in her heart for him, and he knew it, the scamp; but though Dan was perhaps her favourite, at any rate for the moment, the others benefited by the favour ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... my exhilarating means. I found at Cairo, in the Teriaki Square, opposite the hospital for the insane—wasn't it a profoundly philosophical idea to establish in such a place dealers in happiness?—an old scamp, dry as a papyrus of the time of Amenoteph, shrivelled as the beards of the Pschent of the goddess Isis; this cabalistic druggist possessed the true receipt for the preparation of hashisch; besides, he seemed old enough to have gotten it direct from the Old Man ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... civilians came to no decision. The military court of honour put the result of its deliberations in the Carlsruhe Zeitung, as a public advertisement, couched in these terms: "The Herr von Kugelblitz may not fight with the Herr von Thalermacher." Thus posted as a scamp, Thalermacher advertised back his own defence; and, by public circulars and bills, declared the accusation of Kugelblitz to be false and malicious, and his behaviour dishonourable and cowardly. At the same time, a Russian officer of good family,—Demboffsky—who had acted throughout as negotiator ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... so, if you let her run your errands, you lazy little scamp," answered Mac, looking after her as she went up the green slope, for there was something very attractive to him about the slender figure in a plain white gown with a black sash about the waist and all the wavy hair gathered to the top of the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... Port abandoned his intended remonstrance and reproof and proceeded to answer it. "Yes," he said, "I know him. It's Van Rensselaer Livingstone. His cousin, Van Ruy-ter Livingstone, married your cousin Grace—Grace Winthrop, you know. He's a great scamp—this one, I mean; gambles, and that sort of thing, I'm told, and drinks, and—and various things. I shall have to speak to him if he sees me, I suppose; but of course I shall not introduce him ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... the black man. "Two dollars." "What do you charge those in the passenger-carriage?" "Two dollars." "And do you charge me the same as you do those who ride in the best carriages?" asked the Negro. "Yes," was the answer. "I shan't pay it," returned the man. "You black scamp, do you think you can ride on this road without paying your fare?" "No, I don't want to ride for nothing; I only want to pay what's right." "Well, launch out two dollars, and that's right." "No, I shan't; ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... saved a bit of the letter for you to see, and here it is. We don't any of us see what made you so mad at the man she got—he's a good fellow, and puts up with all her high temper. She's terrible like yourself, excuse me for saying so and meaning no harm. If she'd married some young scamp that was soaked in whiskey and cigarettes you'd a-had something to kick about. I don't see what you find in him to fault. Maybe you'll be for telling me to mind my own business, but I am not used to doing that, for I like to take a hand any place I see I can do any good, and if I was leaving my ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... reason or occasion for the composition of The Blues, it is a harder, perhaps an impossible, task to identify all the dramatis personae. Botherby, Lady Bluemount, and Miss Diddle are, obviously, Sotheby, Lady Beaumont, and Lydia White. Scamp the Lecturer may be Hazlitt, who had incurred Byron's displeasure by commenting on his various and varying estimates of Napoleon (see Lectures on the English Poets, 1818, p. 304, and Don Juan, Canto 1. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... but pure and gentle as the babe new-born—not satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness, probably a murderer—ay, the murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian [Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge], a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the whole court, added, with all acted ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... unqualified scamp, who ARE you, and what do you mean by looking so exactly like my girl here that I don't know whether I've one daughter or two?" Then Durand fled, laughing as only Durand could—with eyes, lips and an indescribable expression which made both the ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... him. He said, "I trusted him as if he were my own brother, and treated him as kindly. The abolitionists talked to him in several places; but I had no idea they could tempt him. However, I don't blame William. He's young and inconsiderate, and those Northern rascals decoyed him. I must confess the scamp was very bold about it. I met him coming down the steps of the Astor House with his trunk on his shoulder, and I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to change his old trunk. I told him it was rather ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)

... had, you'd have heard sad stories about me. To this hour they say there that I—bloodthirsty, coward dog that I am—flogged a sailor, one Mungo Maxwell, to death. It's a lie, by Heaven! I flogged him, for he was a mutinous scamp. But he died naturally, some time afterwards, and on board another ship. But why talk? They didn't believe the affidavits of others taken before London courts, triumphantly acquitting me; how then will they credit my interested words? ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... couriers paused and looked At the scamp so blithe and gay; And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend! You seem ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... gentleman leave out the shirt and the smock?" upon which we were informed that "body linen" was not so much as to be hinted at before a truly refined Bath audience. How particular we are growing—in word! I am much afraid my father will shock them with the speech of that scamp Mercutio in all its pristine purity and precision. Good-by, dear ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... yearning to put an arm about him.... Dear old Jack.... Dear, irresponsible scamp.... His reaction of the irritation vanished.... It was so darned good to see ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... paid in full. I offered him, at first, twenty-five cents in the dollar, but THAT he wouldn't hear to. Then I found a small error, and offered forty. It wouldn't do, and I had to pay the scamp a hundred. I can look that fellow in the face with a perfectly ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... used to jeer at his friend for letting himself be under their thumb. As a matter of fact he had no right to scoff: for he had himself been afflicted for twenty years with a shrewish cross-grained wife, who had always regarded him as an old scamp and had taken him down a peg or two. But he was always careful not to mention her. The stationer was a little ashamed, and used to defend himself feebly, and in a mealy voice profess a Kropotkinesque gospel ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... boy was most interesting, so handsome, so unusual. She smiled upon him like a guardian angel with exquisite teeth, and the scamp turned again to the sea, apostrophizing in fo'c'sle idiom all ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... he was a captain or a colonel or something equally fancy in the army. He's a dashing young scamp, and he had the good luck or the bad luck whatever you want to call it to engage the affections of a good-looking young actress who was supposed to be bestowing those affections on a man higher up. Naturally, the man higher up looked about for a way of getting even. ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... L.T. MEADE, Author of "Scamp and I," etc. Illustrated by Barnes. "An exquisite little tale. Since the days of 'Little Meg's Children' there has been no sketch approaching the pathos of child-life in 'A Band of Three.'"—Christian Leader. "Full ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... of Dan since his departure. Dad spoke about him to Mother. "The scamp!" he said, "to leave me just when I wanted help—after all the years I've slaved to feed him and clothe him, see what thanks I get! but, mark my word, he'll be glad to come back yet." But Mother would never say ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... beat them? Perhaps Salina's unhappiness of temper owed its development chiefly to this cause. No wonder, then, that we find her melancholy, morbid, unreasonable, and now so ready to cling again to this wretch, this scamp, her husband, forgiving all, forgetting all (for the moment at least), in the wild flood of love and tears ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... me,' said Leucha, 'exactly as if I were the sinner. It's Hollyhock, mean little scamp, who is the sinner, and yet you call her brave ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade

... the young man side-stepped, caught the hard, bony wrist as the captain lurched by, following his wasted blow, and with a dexterous twist laid him flat on his back, with a sounding thump upon the deck. And as the infuriated scamp rose—which he did with a bound that placed him on his feet and in defensive posture; as though the deck had been a spring-board—Kirkwood leaped back, seized a capstan-bar, and faced him with ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... Accordingly, I couldn't miss sight of three or four young slips alongside, for they made plenty of noise—one of 'em on top of a water-barrel smoking a cigar; another singing out inside of it for mercy; and the rest roaring round about it, like so many Bedlamites. "No wonder the young scamp wants to go to sea," thinks I, "he's got nothin' arthly to do but mischief." "Which is the young gentleman, marm?" says I, lookin' back into the room—"Is it him with the cigar and the red skull-cap?" "Yes," ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... keep out of sight, put out of sight; lose sight of. overlook, disregard; pass over, pas by; let pass; blink; wink at, connive at;gloss over; take no note of, take no thought of, take no account of, take no notice of; pay no regard to; laisser aller[Fr]. scamp; trifle, fribble[obs3]; do by halves; cut; slight &c. (despise) 930; play with, trifle with; slur, skim, skim the surface; effleurer [Fr]; take a cursory view of &c. 457. slur over, skip over, jump over, slip over; pretermit[obs3], miss, skip, jump, omit, give ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... aside, cst aside, put aside; keep out of sight, put out of sight; lose sight of. overlook, disregard; pass over, pas by; let pass; blink; wink at, connive at; gloss over; take no note of, take no thought of, take no account of, take no notice of; pay no regard to; laisser aller [Fr.]. scamp; trifle, fribble^; do by halves; cut; slight &c (despise) 930; play with, trifle with; slur, skim, skim the surface; effleurer [Fr.]; take a cursory view of &c 457. slur over, skip over, jump over, slip over; pretermit^, miss, skip, jump, omit, give the go-by ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... whence, staggering like a ship, it reel'd, At random driv'n, to starboard now, o'ercome, And now to larboard, by the vaulting waves. Next springing up into the chariot's womb A fox I saw, with hunger seeming pin'd Of all good food. But, for his ugly sins The saintly maid rebuking him, away Scamp'ring he turn'd, fast as his hide-bound corpse Would bear him. Next, from whence before he came, I saw the eagle dart into the hull O' th' car, and leave it with his feathers lin'd; And then a voice, like that ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... from the camp Will pay for all the school expenses Of any Kurrum Valley scamp Who knows no word of moods and tenses, But, being blessed with perfect sight, Picks off ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling

... sensations of love, though you have never had a passion. Can you expect to know how it feels to hold a beautiful girl in your arms, when you never had one there? You put words of temptation into the mouth of your villain which no real scamp would think of using, for their only effect would be to alarm your heroine. You talk of a planned seduction as if it were part of an oratorio. And you make your hero so superlatively pure and sweet ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... an incredulous Western world puts no faith in Mahatmas. To it a Mahatma is a kind of spiritual Mrs. Harris, giving an address in Thibet at which no letters are delivered. Either, it says, there is no such person, or he is a fraudulent scamp with no greater occult powers—well, than ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... like a young scamp," said Gilbert, coolly. "I'm much obliged to him for introducing my name into the matter. I hope he'll get ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... cross the threshold of that church. And I've worshiped there for fifty years. Hum—ha! I should like to know whose money has gone more liberal for that meeting house than mine! But not another cent—no, sir! not one—if that licentious young scamp continues to ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... funniest thing ever?" he exclaimed. "Just to think of that scamp settling himself up there among the leaves of that tree, intending to jump ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... aside, which I am not supposed to hear, she adds, 'A great heiress, of a very respectable family. You may have heard of them.' Somehow, this always makes me uncomfortable, as it brings up certain cogitations touching that scamp you were silly enough to marry, thereby giving me to the world, which my delectable brother no doubt thinks would have been better off without me. How is Hugh? And how is that Hastings woman? Are you both as much in love with her ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... on the pinto. Her hair was flyin', her eyes was dancin', an' she was laughin'—laughin' out loud. Light an' easy she pulled the pinto up beside us an' calls out: "Oh, daddy, this is lovely, this is mag-ni-fi-cent"—the little scamp used to pick up big words from the Easterners, an' when she had one to fit she never wasted time on a measly little ranch word—"oh, I'm never goin' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he hasn't punished one of them—not one of them—since baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg that he might rest from work—he only laughed, and said Negrillon was a great scamp. Oh, mamma, I'm ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... mercy for the loafer and the scamp — If there wasn't law and order, there was justice in the camp; And the manly independence that is found where diggers are Had a sentinel to guard it in the CAMBAROORA STAR. There was strife about ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson

... repressed his astonishment. He saw that this young scamp was the possessor of many secrets which might be of inestimable value to him; but he also saw that he was determined to hold his tongue, and that it would at present be a waste of time to try and get anything out of him; and ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... Many are the carpenters, bricklayers, bakers' apprentices, etc., who are now living decently in Bristol, Newcastle, Hull, Liverpool, after marrying sixteen wives, and leaving families to the care of twelve separate parishes. That scamp is at this moment circulating and gyrating in society, like a respectable te-totum, though we know not his exact name, who, if he were pleased to reveal himself in seventeen parts of this kingdom, where (to use the police language) he has been 'wanted' ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Blues?" she cried sharply. "Come here, you little scamp, or I shall be after you. Do you want to be shot? Come, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... During their Polynesian cruise, they had seen many instances of rapid advancement; vagabond foreigners, of all nations, domesticated in the families of chiefs and kings, and sometimes married to their daughters and sharing their power. At one of the Tonga islands, a scamp of a Welshman officiated as cupbearer to the king of the cannibals. The monarch of the Sandwich islands has three foreigners about his court—a Negro to beat the drum, a wooden-legged Portuguese to play the fiddle, and Mordecai, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... company's better than no company at all. Sure. And Mickey has been here always when dad's been away past times. Mickey was a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he'd have been better company if he'd been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think he would. Bad company doesn't ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... her in indignation. Her brother——!! But there was no use making any row, he said to himself. If anything were to be done for her he must put up with all that. There had suddenly come upon John, he knew not how, as he scanned her anxious face, a conviction that the man was a scamp, from whom at all hazards ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant

... with you, you impudent fellow!" said she, in high good humor. "Go and look at that old scamp of an Inglesby making eyes at a girl young enough to be his daughter! I heard this morning that Mr. Hunter has orders to get him, by hook or crook, an invitation to anything Mary Virginia goes to. I declare, it's scandalous! Come to think of it, though, I never saw any man ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler



Words linked to "Scamp" :   brat, shaver, youngster, holy terror, little terror, fry, scalawag, execute, nipper, tiddler, kid, do, minor, music, small fry, nestling, child, terror, perform, monkey, tike, tyke



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