It's the Word of the Day podcast for February 13th.
Today's word is rapscallion, spelled R-A-P-S-C-A-L-L-I-O-N.
Rapscallion is a noun.
It refers to someone who causes trouble, often in a mischievous way.
It appears in the same sorts of contexts as the words rascal and scamp.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the record of Bergen County.
Charlie Brown evolved into a world-class underdog.
Originally, Charlie Brown was a bit of a rapscallion, a bit of a wiseass, Mountner said.
There is a certain point after a year or two when he starts to become the butt of jokes,
when he starts being a lonely kid.
Once Charles Schultz hit upon that, Charlie Brown got it pretty bad for a long time.
The word rascal has been part of English since the 15th century,
but it apparently failed to fully capture the disagreeable nature of the wily knaves of yore.
By the 16th century, English speakers had expanded rascal to rascallion.
But it seems that even that term didn't sound quite mischievous enough.
Eventually, rascallion was further altered,
resulting in the snappier, plosive-enhanced word rapscallion.
and although rap scallion has zero connection with scallion,
it does add a figuratively spicy kick to one's speech,
not unlike chew bacon and other cheeky insults that may be of interest and use.