devil-may-care
English
Etymology
WOTD – 20 January 2012
Shortened from, “The devil may care, but I do not”.
Adjective
devil-may-care (comparative more devil-may-care, superlative most devil-may-care)
- Carefree, reckless, irresponsible.
- 1837, Charles Dickens, chapter 49, in The Pickwick Papers:
- Not that this would have worried him much, anyway—he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person.
- 1910, Jeffery Farnol, chapter 3, in The Broad Highway:
- Now, upon his whole person, from the crown of his unkempt head down to his broken, dusty boots, there yet clung that air of jaunty, devil-may-care rakishness.
- 2011 May 21, Altin Raxhimi, "The Trouble with Democracy: Albania's Worrisome Vote," Time:
- Tiny Albania emerged from communist dictatorship in 1990 only to tumble into a rough world of gangsters, fraudulent financial machinations and incompetent governance, exacerbated by lawless capitalism and devil-may-care politics.
-
Synonyms
Translations
carefree
|
|
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.