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Examples

  • Nothing but the fear of that honest young Meeker led to the disgrace of Pease, who no doubt would now be made the scape-grace for all Jessup's shortcomings in the store-way.

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 1, July, 1862 Various

  • Dick was a wild, rattling scape-grace, as ever robbed hen-roost or melon-patch; Belinda was nothing, particularly, except a little, quiet, blue-eyed girl, the pride of her aunt, and a pattern of propriety to all little girls.

    The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 Volume 23, Number 1 Various

  • Fred, the scape-grace, had adroitly climbed, carefully lifted the upper crust from the cherished pie, and abstracted all the cherries.

    A Grandmother's Recollections Ella Rodman Church

  • His countenance seemed that of a courtier rather than a low-born scape-grace; his bearing in consonance, as, approaching the princess, he knelt near the edge of her sweeping crimson garment.

    Under the Rose Frederic Stewart Isham

  • The pride of the castle and of the cottage was there; the heir to vast estates, and the support of his widowed mother's old age; the scape-grace of the family, and the one on whom all its hopes centred.

    From Aldershot to Pretoria A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa W. E. Sellers

  • "If you dare, you scape-grace, right here in this dining-room!" she warned.

    Peggy Stewart at School

  • Bertie's Irish blarney always peeped out in his dealings with women, and Lady Susan of late had been so unaccustomed to anything of the sort, that her heart began to warm to her scape-grace nephew.

    Bluebell A Novel Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

  • He smiled cynically, as though he were two separate persons, one of whom was cool and calculating, while the other was improvident and scape-grace.

    The Kingdom Round the Corner A Novel Coningsby Dawson 1921

  • Patty's honest gaze encountered the appraising glint in the coot grey eyes of the foppish scape-grace before her.

    Down the Mother Lode Vivia Hemphill 1911

  • Irish relations, she had only to give a smile and a few soft words to the Duke of Wellington, and her scape-grace brother found himself quartered for life upon the revenues of Nova Scotia.

    The Tribune of Nova Scotia A Chronicle of Joseph Howe 1903

Comments

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  • Citation on verb-grinder.

    September 19, 2008

  • Yes, ladies, said I, it is even so. Though Scipio in his childhood was a very scape-grace, he has been born anew, and is now the exact model of a trusty domestic.

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 10 ch. 12

    October 10, 2008