raffish

adjective

raff·​ish ˈra-fish 

1

: marked by or suggestive of flashy vulgarity or crudeness

2

: marked by a careless unconventionality : rakish

raffishly adverb

raffishness noun

Did you know?

Raffish sounds like it should mean "resembling raff." But what is raff? Originally, "raff" was a word meaning "rubbish"; it derived from Middle English "raf," and it was being used for trash and refuse back in the 1400s. Around a century later, English speakers were also using the word riffraff to mean "disreputable characters" or "rabble." The origins of "riffraff" are distinct from the "rubbish" sense of "raff"; "riffraff" derived from an Anglo-French phrase meaning "one and all." By the mid-1500s, the similarities between "raff" and "riffraff" had prompted people to start using the two words as synonyms, and "raff" gained a "rabble" sense. It was that ragtag "raff" that gave rise to the adjective "raffish" in the late 1700s.

Synonyms of raffish

• crass
• vulgar
• rude
• coarse
• common
• crude

Examples of raffish in a Sentence

the dowager cringed at the thought of raffish tourists in rough boots tromping all over her Persian rugs

Recent Examples on the Web

A little lowly courier work, yes, but nothing more raffish than that. — Anthony Lane, New Yorker, 8 Sep. 2025

Kids join academies as raffish improvisors, little bundles of wild ideas and schemes. — New York Times, 10 June 2026

And then there's a top-of-his-game Chevy Chase as a devil-may-care golfer and Bill Murray as a raffish groundskeeper. — Jesse Hassenger, Entertainment Weekly, 18 June 2026

The banal village tunes that Mahler altered into sinister mock vulgarities—did these not recall the raffish klezmer bands, the wandering musicians who played at shtetl weddings? — David Denby, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1795, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

raffish

adjective

raff·​ish ˈraf-ish 

1

: vulgarly crude or flashy

raffish language

2

: careless about moral behavior : disreputable

raffishly adverb

raffishness noun