harum-scarum

adjective

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

disorganized; uncontrolled.

adverb

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

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. 2013.
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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
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

harum-scarum

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

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

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