rakeryn.
/ˈreɪk(ə)ri/, U.S. /ˈreɪkəri/ Behaviour or habits characteristic of a rake; debauchery, dissoluteness, profligacy, promiscuity; an instance of this.
ΘΚΠ
society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > profligacy, dissoluteness, or debauchery > [noun] > action or conduct
recolagea1400
racket1565
ranting1633
raking1700
rakery1712
1712 W. Oldisworth tr. R. Bentley Note in Horace Odes I. xiv. 30/2 Such Rakeries do better become the young Fellows in their Midnight Gallantries to their Mistresses.
1728 H. Fielding Love in Several Masques i. v. 12 O if that be the Malady, I wou'd prescribe to the Gentleman a Course of Rakery.
1788 R. Burns Let. (1985) I. 280 I am so enamoured with a certain girl's prolific twin-bearing merit..and so farewell Rakery!
1850 L. Hunt Autobiogr. I. vi. 241 He looked..like the man who could bear rakery and debauch.
1943 Amer. Sociol. Rev. 8 103/2 In the ‘good old days’ of Georgian England there flourished a cult of rakery so extremist in character as to make even modern libertines blush.
1979 R. Dahl My Uncle Oswald i. 10 I had begun to acquire a taste for rakery and wenching among the London debutantes.
2002 Dance Res. 20 50 To target the naivety of the social aspirations of ‘Cheapside’ women..for being unable to see the difference between male civility and rakery.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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