a trouble-making youth, usually a male; a thug or tough. From British dialect, recorded in Warwickshire and Worcestershire; originally a term of the greatest contempt and the youths so labelled were the subject of much C19 media hype. Journalist Nat Gould described them (1898) as 'hideous-looking fellows, whose features bear traces of unmistakable indulgence in every loathsome vice'. The amelioration of the term relies on the difference between a 'healthy' disregard for authority and social convention and an 'unhealthy' one AUSTRALIA, 1868.

a fun-loving, good-natured mischief-maker; a scallywag. Seen as typically Australian and much romanticised in literature, as C.J. Dennis' character, the Sentimental Bloke. Now the prevailing sense AUSTRALIA, 1891