Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a ne’er-do-well, a disreputable person.

1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms 284: Scalawag, a favorite epithet in western New York for a mean fellow; a scape-grace .
1855		T. Haliburton Nature and Human Nature I 112: You good-for-nothin’ young scallowag.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America I 424: The councilmen too often belong to the comprehensive genus ‘scallywag’.
1869		J.R. Browne Adventures in the Apache Country 183: She [...] had been eight days at this infernal place among a set of scallywags who didn’t understand her lingo.
1876		A.B. Sedgwick My Walking Photograph 12: I can always refer to that other scalawag, my walking photograph. But what a scamp you are, Mr. Richard Robson!
1882		Leeds Times 25 Mar. 6/5: Wheat had risen ten cents a bushel owing to some scalawags cornering it.
1896		Morn. Appeal (Carson City, NV) 12 Feb. 3/2: Some scallowag punctured General Thaxter’s wheel with pins.
1897		F.H. Carruth Voyage of the Rattletrap 206: If it ain’t them three pesky scallawags back safe and sound!
1898		Watauga Democrat (Boone, NC) 27 Oct. 1/6: ‘A “scalawag” is a native born Southern white man who says that a negro is as good as he is’.
1901		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ In Bad Company 107: It’s dashed hard lines on him to be scruffed and gaoled by those Union scallowags.
1904		‘G.B. Lancaster’ Sons O’ Men 43: Yer was a fair scallywag ter the boys, yer know.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 320: He hearn me, the scalawag!
1911		Gem 23 Sept. 20: And I guess some of the scalawags down there are feeling a bit chipped now.
1914		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 22 June [synd. cartoon] They’re an awful care them children. My David was a scallywag.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 204: scalawag, skalawag, rascal.
1916		J. Buchan Greenmantle (1930) 164: He wrote other letters to the Press, saying that there was no more liberty of speech in England, and a lot of scallywags backed him up.
1919		‘Sapper’ Mufti 180: Why, in the name of fortune, I should give what I possess to a crowd of scally wags who haven’t made good.
1925		L. Doyle Dear Ducks 225: It’s a blessed miracle has fell from Heaven to warn that dirty scallywag from his murdherin’ ways.
1929		J.F. Matheus Black Damp in Hatch & Hamalian Lost Plays of Harlem Renaissance (1996) Scene i: ’Spose yo’ kill that no count scalawag. What good would it do yo’.
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 193: William and Fred [...] were thorough scallywags, the sort of men who get tramps a bad name.
1938		D. Runyon ‘It Comes Up Mud’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 536: Some scalawag slips a firecracker into Governor Hicks.
1941		A. Lomax Mister Jelly Roll (1952) 25: A musician is nothing but a bum and a scalawag.
1948		P. Kavanagh Tarry Flynn (1965) 23: Good God, good God, what is this country coming to? Atheists, scallywags ...
1953		J. Thompson Criminal (1993) 108: The whole family are liars, malingerers and scalawags.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 179: You’re a funny little scallywag.
1964		J.A. Lee Shiner Slattery 7: Pioneer communities hug their scallywags, as much as their heroes, to their chests, when men meet in the bar.
1965		S. Selvon Housing Lark 39: These fellars is a set of scallywags, all they could do is waste time, gamble, and chase women.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 84: Promising to sign the most outrageous and/or untouchable scalawags from Maine to El Cajon.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 19: The bad-tempered scallywag reluctantly closed his switch-blade and slowly returned it to his breast pocket.
1981		G. Young Slow Boats to China (1983) 129: Egyptian scalawags, a grinning lot in torn and dirty robes, perched dangerously on the metal platforms.
1984		A. Sayle Train to Hell 31: He went all agitated and muttered, ‘Cutpurses! Scallywags!’.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 10: My mother married ‘beneath herself’. A ‘scallywag’, a ‘larrikin’ [...] my posh aunties from the North Shore suburbs said.
2000		Sun. Times Mag. 6 Feb. 9: Gary was a scallywag – a bit of a toerag.

2. (US) a white Southerner who was willing to accept the terms of Reconstruction after the US Civil War (1861–5).

1862		Charleston Mercury 9 Aug. 1/3: This invaluable class is composed [...] of ten parts of unadulterated Andy Johnson Union men, ten of good lord and good devil-ites, five of spuss and seventy-five of all scallowags [DA].
1880		Anderson Intelligencer (SC) 8 Jan. 1/6: General Grant is finding favor with Southern Democracy [...] That he should be chosen favorite of the Southern carpet-baggers and scallawags will not surprise anyone.
1888		Waco Eve. News (TX) 18 Sept. 2/2: He would not solicit the colored vote [...] but when the race was between a Democrat and a scalawag-Democrat [...] he was ready to go on the stump.
1901		Salt Lake Herald (UH) 5 Aug. 1/3: The carpet-baggers, the ‘niggers’ and the southern scallywags and scoundrels ruled us after the war until they had stolen everything.
1911		A.M. Simons Social Forces in Amer. Hist. 298: The army of men that were thus marshaling the negroes for the Republican party was made up in part of Northern adventurers (‘carpet-baggers’) and so-called Southern ‘Union men’ (‘scalawags’) [DA].
1946		Democrat 24 Oct. 4/1: It wasn’t this cringing spirit which enabled our forefathers [...] to retain control of the voting machinery and run the scalawags and carpetbaggers out of the state [DA].
1978		Maledicta II:1+2 Summer/Winter 169: Scalawag A native white Southerner who collaborated with Carpetbaggers during the Reconstruction period. Extended to include native white Southern Nigger-lovers in general.

3. (US) the penis.

1997–2002

Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 scallywag (noun) penis Origins unknown.