rapinn.

1840 tr. J. Chaudes-Aigues in tr. J. Janin et al. Pictures of French 64 Let those who wish to convince themselves of..the details I have given as to the ‘Rapin’, visit any French school of painting.

1854 B. St. John Purple Tints of Paris (ed. 2) 517 The Rapin is the servant of the atelier—something equivalent to a fag at public school... Some of the best French artists have been rapins in their time.

1882 Cent. Mag. Nov. 32/2 I knew him as an art-student, when he was leaving the studio, a true rapin, fond of making caricatures.

1891 M. S. van de Velde tr. H. Lavedan Mamzelle Vertu in French Fiction of Today I. iv. 88 Nothing disturbed her, neither the stifled laughter of a group of rapins in front of a Hercules, or the ‘shocking’ bleated by a herd of female English visitors.

1894 G. Du Maurier Trilby I. ii. 94 From the kind of laughter with which the points were received by the ‘rapins’ in Carrel's studio he guessed these little songs were vile.

1913 Times 15 Nov. 14/3 The ‘rapins’ of the Quartier were not quite so fierce of aspect or so numerous as in former years.

1922 Times 1 Apr. 11/6 These ‘wild men’ do not wear the big felt hats, long hair, and loosely-tied cravat of their forebears, the rapins of Montmatre and Montparnasse.

1950 E. Melcher Life & Times Henry Monnier iii. 25 In the group of rapins who were Monnier's comrades at the studio of Gros, the outstanding figure was that of Charlet.