as in corrupt
having or showing lowered moral character or standards
within a few short years their rakish son had squandered the family fortune on hard liquor and fast cars
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of rakish
While trying to stay under the radar, Sophie catches Benedict's attention, who is determined to leave his rakish past behind him.
—
Monica Mercuri, Forbes.com, 29 Jan. 2026
Top 5 Can’t Miss Tequila here is made for sipping—at rakish cantinas, ambitious cocktail bars, and straight from the source on a distillery tour.
—David Shortell, Travel + Leisure, 28 Sep. 2025
Historical trappings aside, the role marks a departure from the rakish George Wickham or anyone he’s portrayed before.
—Alex Ritman, Variety, 12 Sep. 2025
In addition, Schwartzman portrays Burton, a rakish vampire leading a cloistered life in an Upper West Side penthouse, while Bogosian plays Daniel Molloy, and Kirk is Talamasca agent Raglan James.
—Lynette Rice, Deadline, 4 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for rakish
Monica Mercuri, Forbes.com, 29 Jan. 2026
Top 5 Can’t Miss Tequila here is made for sipping—at rakish cantinas, ambitious cocktail bars, and straight from the source on a distillery tour.
—David Shortell, Travel + Leisure, 28 Sep. 2025
Historical trappings aside, the role marks a departure from the rakish George Wickham or anyone he’s portrayed before.
—Alex Ritman, Variety, 12 Sep. 2025
In addition, Schwartzman portrays Burton, a rakish vampire leading a cloistered life in an Upper West Side penthouse, while Bogosian plays Daniel Molloy, and Kirk is Talamasca agent Raglan James.
—Lynette Rice, Deadline, 4 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for rakish
Recent Examples of Synonyms for rakish
Adjective
-
Fujimori is linked to the authoritarian and corrupt legacy of the government of her late father, Alberto Fujimori, in the 1990s.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
7 June 2026
-
Of course, all of this convenient acquiescence will sound familiar in the United States, where our own Congress and Department of Justice have been nothing if not servile to a brazenly corrupt executive.—
Daniel Alarcón,
New Yorker,
4 June 2026
Adjective
-
Even when degraded, enzymes have stable backbones that might be capable of catalyzing reactions, said Sudha Rajamani, an astrobiologist at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune who wasn’t involved in the study.—
Siddhant Pusdekar,
Quanta Magazine,
1 June 2026
-
According to the company, QTT enables highly secure and resilient position, navigation, and timing (PNT) services, helping maintain accurate timing and synchronization even when traditional GPS and radio-frequency signals are unavailable, degraded, or intentionally jammed.—
Bojan Stojkovski,
Interesting Engineering,
30 May 2026
Adjective
-
One night in April when the boy playing Orlando was home sick and Jamie was waiting for Adele in their private coital chamber, Bromley kept her late to work on the scene where Orlando courts Rosalind playing Ganymede playing Rosalind.—
Jonathan Franzen,
New Yorker,
1 June 2026
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Recently, she’s begun to feel physically sick due to everything going on in her life and is sharing with us that she’s been struggling with getting up, eating and other simple, everyday things.—
Harriette Cole,
Mercury News,
1 June 2026
Adjective
-
The economist’s description of the Fed chair was admiring, almost tender— comparing him to a kindly gardener who knew just how much sunlight to bestow upon the plants, or to a father figure who could keep his profligate and dissolute children on the right path.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
13 May 2026
-
Dane receives more screen time, but his dissolute, oft-drunk character is hard to watch knowing the actor’s offscreen battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.—
Carla Meyer,
San Francisco Chronicle,
8 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The set design is intricate and distorted—visible paintbrush strokes, acute angles, crooked lines—lending the film a surreal quality and supporting its cast of expressive actors, exaggerated costuming, and eerie makeup.—
Air Mail,
Air Mail,
30 May 2026
-
Falter struggled, but he also wasn’t helped by a replay review that helped the Yankees put up a crooked number in the first inning.—
Pete Grathoff,
Kansas City Star,
27 May 2026
Adjective
-
Get plenty of sides including the decadent Tater Tot Casserole.—
Melissa Liebling-goldberg,
PEOPLE,
3 June 2026
-
Beyond nostalgia, these refreshing, oceanic scents are also a wonderful reprieve from the wave of saccharine gourmands (from springy banana scents to decadent vanillas for winter) that dominated #PerfumeTok over the last few years.—
Kara Jillian Brown,
InStyle,
3 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Rakish.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rakish. Accessed 8 Jun. 2026.
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