Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A rough, coarse fellow; a rough; collectively, the lowest class of the people; the riffraff; the rabble.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Colloq. U.S. A rough, coarse fellow; collectively, the lowest class of the people; the rabble; the riffraff.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US, informal The lowest class of people; the rabble.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

rough +‎ scuff

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Examples

  • "The roughscuff won't volunteer without that, and I shall be reasonably certain of some good men -- God! and I'm saying this of Champney Googe -- it makes me sick; who'd have thought it -- who'd have thought it --"

    Flamsted quarries Mary E. Waller

  • They had been obliged to herd with roughscuff from the city employment agencies, unskilled men who were all the time coming and going and were mostly underfoot when they were on the job.

    Joan of Arc of the North Woods Holman Day 1900

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