39 adjectives to describe rakes

To one like myself who had read of the Continental gambling-houses with the clink of gold pieces on the table, and the croupier with his wooden rake noisily raking in the winnings of the bank, the comparative silence of the American game comes as a surprise.

The career of a mere rake, who shuns no means of gratifying his low appetites, has little analogy with that of an originally honest inquirer, led astray by the want of faith and his sensual nature.

" "My girl gives me great prospect of satisfaction, but my young rogue of a son is the most ungovernable little rake that ever played truant," Lady Mary wrote to Lady Mar in July, 1727, when the boy was fourteen and the girl nine years old.

The coffee-urn and the gruel-pot stood on the hearth, and there was some wood in the fireplace; the oven-rake and baker's peel stood in a corner; the spinning wheel was raised on a bench; on the shelf over the window lay oakum and flax, a couple of skeins of yarn, a candle, and a bunch of matches.

The ingenious Mr. Pinkethman is a bashful rake, and is sheepish, without having modesty with great success.

An old rake, blind and half-paralysed as the immediate result of ill-living, he had worried his first wife, Ragni's sister, into the grave, and then taken advantage of the young girl's innocence to marry her.

They are far superior to the cold-blooded rakes of Dryden and the Restoration comedy.

Here is part of the apostrophe put into the mouth of this brilliant rake.

Limbs of trees, bits of torn cloth, a broken hay-rake, fragments of wool, a wagon-wheel, and two dead sheep were scattered along the shore.

He loved frivolity and went about much, but he seems by no means to have deserved the reputation given him by the gossip of that time and this, that he was a confirmed rake.

His Letter gives us the Picture of a converted Rake.

Some said she was the daughter of a noble house, kidnapped by gipsies in her infancy; others were equally confident that she had for father the coroneted rake, Lord Byron, and for mother a charwoman.

"I am a desperate old rake, you mean, Mari.

This girl's a devilish rake in her heart.

All around it were those hideous signs of mining operations which make a country rich in metals look as though the devil had walked over it, dragging behind him an enormous rake.

And so did Frank Headley get what he wanted; by that plain earnest simplicity, which has more power (let worldlings pride themselves as they will on their knowledge of women) than all the cunning wiles of the most experienced rake; and only by aping which, after all, can the rake conquer.

The glory of his later life fought against the gloom of his disease, but the ferocious rake had made, as the proverb has it, an ideal husband and father.

In Scottish hills found precious ore, Where none e'er looked for it before; And by a gentle bow divined, How well a Cully's purse was lined; To a forlorn and broken rake, Stood without motion like a stake.

When Hector's lovely widow shines in tears, Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers, With the same cast of features he is seen To chide the libertine and court the queen.

Before long he was amusing himself by thinking how it might have gone with her if she had him for her counsellor instead of a gross and thoughtless rake like Marmaduke.

" These lines, taken hap-hazard from Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband," contain the very spirit and essence of that old English comedy wherein the hero was nothing more than a handsome rake and the heroinewell, not a straitlaced Puritan or a prude.

Our author was a man of the highest benevolence; he celebrates a generous action with a warmth that is only peculiar to a good heart; and however he may be blamed for want of oeconomy, &c. yet was he the most agreeable, and if we may be allowed the expression, the most innocent rake, that ever trod the rounds of indulgence.

The first emotion that stirred Barnaby True was one of extreme and profound astonishment; the second thought that came into his mind was that maybe some witty fellowof whom he knew a good many in that place, and wild, mad rakes they were as ever the world beheldwas attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him.

The comic part of the play contains much of what was thought wit in the reign of Charles II.; for marriage is railed against, and a male and female rake join in extolling the pleasures of a single life, even while the usage of the theatre compels them, at length, to put on the matrimonial chains.

About three Winters ago I took Notice of a young Lady at the Theatre, who convceived of a Passion for a notorious Rake that headed a Party of Cat-calls; and am credibly informed, that the Emperor of the Mohocks married a rich Widow within three Weeks after having rendered himself formidable in the Cities of London and Westminster.

39 adjectives to describe  rakes