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Ragamuffin   Listen
noun
Ragamuffin  n.  
1.
A paltry or disreputable fellow; a mean wretch.
2.
A person who wears ragged clothing. (Colloq.)
3.
(Zool.) The long-tailed titmouse. (Prov. Eng.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ragamuffin" Quotes from Famous Books



... she gasped between sobs. "Don't let him get me, don't." And even in that broken plea I took it in that the little ragamuffin did not speak the jargon of that slum, but ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... Destripaterrones (navvy) Lavamanos (wash-hand stand) Limpiabotas (boot-black) Matamoros (boaster) Mondadientes (toothpick) Papahueros (ninny) Papamoscas (ninny) Papanatas (ninny) Paracaidas (parachute) Paraguas (umbrella) Pelagatos (ragamuffin) Pintamonas (slap-dasher or bad partner) Sacacorchos (corkscrew) Salvavidas (life-boats) Sepancuantos ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... and children were grubbing for roots, fishing for food, ranging the rocks for berries. There are times when the only thing to do is—do nothing; and it is probably the hardest task a brave man ever has. When the English fleet came back in July Champlain had a ragamuffin, half-starved retinue of precisely sixteen men. Yet he haggled for such terms that the English promised to convey the prisoners to France. On July 20, for the first time in history, the red flag of England blew to the winds above the heights ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... house where they had been stowing away stores, first Davis, and then the ragamuffin, swarthy crew made ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... his neck). Infamous! most infamous Charles! Oh, had I not my forebodings, when, even as a boy, he would scamper after the girls, and ramble about over hill and common with ragamuffin boys and all the vilest rabble; when he shunned the very sight of a church as a malefactor shuns a gaol, and would throw the pence he had wrung from your bounty into the hat of the first beggar he met, whilst we at home were edifying ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... swaggering position, with legs apart and elbows out, of Donatello's "St. George," or Perugino's "St. Michael;" and a young Athenian who should have assumed the attitude of Verrocchio's "David," with tripping legs and hand clapped on his hip, would have been sent away from school as a saucy little ragamuffin. ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... The ragamuffin in question was watching us with all his solitary eye, as though he knew that we were discussing him. Suddenly he broke out in agonized accents, his hands clasped, and a face so full of fear that every moment I expected to see him on his knees. But Raffles answered kindly, ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... aunt stept into the coach, she observed, with some marks of satisfaction, that the postilion, who rode next to her, was not a shabby wretch like the ragamuffin who had them into Marlborough. Indeed, the difference was very conspicuous: this was a smart fellow, with a narrow brimmed hat, with gold cording, a cut bob, a decent blue jacket, leather-breaches, and ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... had taught me were the only ones that had any effect upon the stolid sensibilities of the half-breed,—at the same time administering to him a kick that produced a thud and a grunt, as if actually bestowed on the unclean quadruped to which I had just likened him. The ragamuffin was very slow this time in getting the traps together on the tobaugan, and, if I had not attended to the matter myself, the moose trophy, at least, would in all probability have been left to perish, and would never have pointed a moral and adorned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... patois. I tell him to come in. The sack contains crayfish, and now I know the reason of his mysterious air, for all fishing is prohibited at this time, and he is running the gauntlet of the garde-pche, who lives close by. The poor ragamuffin has been out all night, wading in the streams, and his wife, who looks, if possible, more eager and hungry than himself, is waiting near, keeping watch. He offers his crayfish for three sous the dozen, and I buy them of him without feeling that respect ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... the two, with Patch, were tramping over a rising moor towards a dense promise of woodland which rose in a steep slope, jagged and tossing. This day the ragamuffin winds were out—a plaguy, blustering crew, driving hither and thither in a frolic that knew no law, buffeting either cheek, hustling bewildered vanes, cuffing the patient trees into a dull roar of protest that rose and fell, a sullen harmony, joyless and menacing. The ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... this organist came to a certain lively waltz, and threw his whole soul, as it were, into the crank of his instrument, my beloved ragamuffin failed not to seize another cake-boy in his arms, and thus embraced, to whirl through a wild inspiration of figures, in which there was something grotesquely rhythmic, something of indescribable barbaric magnificence, spiritualized into a grace of movement superior to the energy ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... Your Excellency in hand?" asked the Reverend Mather Byles, whose Presbyterian scruples had not kept him from the entertainment. "Trust me, sir, I have already laughed more than beseems my cloth at your Homeric confabulation with yonder ragamuffin general of the rebels. One other such fit of merriment, and I must throw off ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... wouldn't after this give away a racket. Now you see if you hadn't bestowed your old one on that ragamuffin in town, you wouldn't have been in such a scrape." Tom tried to turn ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... Behold us then in this expedition; myself wrapped up in a very heavy greatcoat, and my cane in my hand. I did not imagine I could have walked a couple of miles in this equipage, had my life been depending; my wife a delicate creature, who had scarce ever walked a mile in her life; and the ragamuffin before us with our boxes under his arm. The night was dark and wet; the road slippery and dirty; not a soul was seen, nor a sound was heard: all was silent, dreary, and horrible. I laid my account ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... extent he had previously believed my story, if at all. One thing was clear: the magic check now made it all real to him. As he handed me back the strip of paper he gave me a look that seemed to say: "So you are a manufacturer, you whom I have always known as a miserable ragamuffin." ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... this upward tilting, he did not appear to be at all proud of the fact that he was riding; and One-Eye fell to watching him, that green eye round with wonder. For here was this little ragamuffin seated high and dry in a first class taxi, and speeding through the city in style, yet with the supreme indifference of ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... that there had never been any Moran but himself, and many another, did homage before him, and held him chief of all their tribe. Nor despite his blindness did he find any difficulty in getting a wife, but rather was able to pick and choose, for he was just that mixture of ragamuffin and of genius which is dear to the heart of woman, who, perhaps because she is wholly conventional herself, loves the unexpected, the crooked, the bewildering. Nor did he lack, despite his rags, many excellent things, for it is remembered that he ever loved caper sauce, ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... pleasant refuge from the autumn storm—that grill. The dark old wood framed light and color, sketches and a line of paintings. Mac's sculptured ragamuffin looked wistfully down from his niche near the open rafters upon a Round Table institutionally fraternal. He seemed always seeking warmth and food. Kenny's old peasant in wrinkled apple-faced cheer smiled broadly from the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... courtyard, shunned by some, glared at by others, but watched by all, and practically at the mercy of the first casual ragamuffin with a chopper, in there. He took possession of a small tumble-down shed to sleep in; the effluvia of filth and rotten matter incommoded him greatly: it seems he had not lost his appetite though, because—he told me—he had been hungry all the blessed time. Now and ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... Say, fellows, a little ragamuffin—so the story goes—was being set upon by a mob of larger boys in the streets of London many years ago. These big bullies were jeering him and throwing sticks and cans at him. The little fellow was plucky and defiant, and it made them ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... vexes me. The censorship has ruined the role of a little legitimist ragamuffin, so that the play, conceived in the spirit of strict unpartisanship, has now to flatter the reactionaries: a result that distresses me. For I don't want to please the political passions of anyone, no matter who it may ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... screamed at them through the door. "You think you can frighten me because I am only a poor girl left alone in the house. You ragamuffin thieves, I defy you both! Our bolts are strong, our shutters are thick. I am here to keep my father's house safe, and keep it I will against ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... genius! It could only have been projected by a great mind. And then look at the effect throughout Europe if an English milord were to be found with a parcel of Orsini bombs in his possession! every ragamuffin from Naples to St. Petersburg would rejoice; the army of cutthroats would march with ...
— Sunrise • William Black

... don't want money. Since I am sure of a situation, I will lay aside the ragamuffin character, and be once more ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray



Words linked to "Ragamuffin" :   urchin



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