ragamuffin

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A dirty, shabbily-clothed child; an urchin.

   I haue led my rag of Muffins where they are pepper'd: there's not three of my 150 left aliue; and they for the Townes end, to beg during life.

From the Middle English Ragamuffyn. Of uncertain origin, according to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: A muffin is a poor thing of a creature, a ‘regular muff’; so that a ragamuffin is a sorry creature in rags.

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