harum-scarum

[hair-uhm-skair-uhm, har-uhm-skar-uhm]

Origin

Sacroiliac Joint Pain? www.sijoint.com/ Watch webinar about SI joint pain and the latest treatment options

Shopping Deals www.shopzilla.com/ Save on 100's of Choices. Compare Prices, Product Reviews.

Sacrum www.ask.com/Sacrum Questions Sacrum Sacrum Answers

Ads

adjective

reckless; rash; irresponsible: He had a harum-scarum youth.

disorganized; uncontrolled.

Sacrum www.healthline.com/ Free pictures and information about sacrum

adverb

recklessly; wildly: He ran harum-scarum all over the place.

00:10

00:09

00:08

00:07

00:06

00:05

00:04

00:03

00:02

00:01

Harum-scarum is always a great word to know.

So is flibbertigibbet. Does it mean:

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

a chattering or flighty, light-headed person.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

noun

a reckless person.

reckless or unpredictable behavior or action.

Origin:
1665–75; earlier harum-starum rhyming compound based on obsolete hare to harass + stare

Related forms

har·um-scar·um·ness, noun

Synonyms
1, 2. erratic, impulsive, impetuous; giddy, scatterbrained.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To harum-scarum

Collins

World English Dictionary

harum-scarum (ˈhɛərəmˈskɛərəm)

—*adj, —adv*
1.	in a reckless way or of a reckless nature

—n
2.	a person who is impetuous or rash

[C17: perhaps from hare (in obsolete sense: harass) + scare, variant of stare¹; compare helter-skelter]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

harum-scarum

1674, probably a compound of obsolete hare "harry" + scare, with 'um as a reduced form of them.

Word Dynamo Rating For Harum-scarum

People who can define Harum-scarum may know 38,500 words, as many as a 10th grader.

How many words do you know?

Use Dictionary.com faster without ads >>

Related Words

thingamajig

Matching Quote

"The field maneuvers may be different from those in Holmes's day, and the villain is more socially mobile, but since Sir Arthur we have not changed the three essential ingredients of the private eye. He must be a bachelor, with the bachelor's harum-scarum availability at all hours (William Powell's marriage to Myrna "Nora" Loy, a wistful concession to the family trade, fooled nobody). He must have an inconspicuous fund of curious knowledge, which in the end is always crucially relevant. He must pity the official guardians of the law. Of course, the twentieth century has grafted some interesting personality changes on the original. Holmes was an eccentric in the Victorian sense, a man with queer hobbies—cocaine was lamentable but pardonably melodramatic—whose social code was essentially that of the ruling classes. He was, in a way, the avenging squire of the underworld ready to administer a horsewhipping to the outcasts who were never privileged by birth to receive it from their fathers. Bogart is a displaced person whose present respectability is uncertain, a classless but well-contained vagabond who is not going to be questioned about where he came from or where he is going. ("I came to Casablanca for the waters." "But there are no waters in Casablanca." "I was misinformed.")"

-Alistair Cooke