Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun People regarded as disreputable or worthless.
- noun Rubbish; trash.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Scraps; refuse; rubbish; trash.
- noun The rabble.
- noun Sport; fun.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Sweepings; refuse; the lowest order of society.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
rabble ;crowds ; the common people. - noun low class,
ghetto ,indigent
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun disparaging terms for the common people
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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I think the Campbells using the term riffraff (one word by the way) was unfortunate, because from context they mean criminals and the term riffraff has additional social class connotations that are inappropriate.
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And yet, for a city of this size, more than the usual combing of the riffraff is necessary.
Lawgivers 1914
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The titled riffraff that had adorned the Louis XV-du
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"I hope to... work with the alternative people, all the so-called riffraff, to give them legal representation that is not judgmental."
Archive 2007-09-01 Ann Althouse 2007
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Riffraff of the riffraff are his friends now, same as they were here.
The Conquest of Canaan Booth Tarkington 1907
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Riffraff of the riffraff are his friends now, same as they were here.
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I resent being called riffraff because I go to a casino.
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True, but think how much better off we are now that our universities accept "riffraff" such as women, the poor, and the non-white.
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And to top it all off, they're so incompetant at keeping out the "riffraff" that they let the most famous atheist in the world in!
Creationism and Censorship James F. McGrath 2008
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They complained that their beautiful street would be ruined by the kind of riffraff that had to live in a single room for weekly rent.
A Red Death Walter Mosley 2002
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