Rapparee

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A bandit or brigand. Ireland, archaic, historical

    "And then he would relate stories of banshees, and robberies, and ghosts, and hair-breadth escapes, and 'rapparees,' and adventures in the wars of King James, which he heard told in his nonage by the old folk, long vanished, who remembered those troubles."

Example

More examples

"And then he would relate stories of banshees, and robberies, and ghosts, and hair-breadth escapes, and 'rapparees,' and adventures in the wars of King James, which he heard told in his nonage by the old folk, long vanished, who remembered those troubles."

Etymology

from Irish rapaire, variant of ropaire (“cutpurse”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.