By Anatoly Liberman
Like culprit, discussed last week, scoundrel surfaced in English books in the modern period. The OED has no citations of it prior to 1589. Given this date, an etymologist faces familiar questions. A borrowing from Scandinavian or Old French should theoretically have turned up in texts long before the end of the 16th century (for example, rascal, from French, was current already in 1330), while if it is a native coinage, one might expect some ties with other native words, but those are questionable, to say the least. However, names for all kinds of despicable characters often originate in such obscure slang that we have no chance of discovering their sources. The 15th and 16th centuries were rich in so-called canting words, as evidenced, among many others, by the history of Engl. rogue. Some such words exist “underground” for hundreds of years before they become known to the rest of the world and make their way into print. This is what may have happened to German Schurke “villain” and Engl. punk. All in all, scoundrel, in which only the suffix is transparent (compare wastrel), will probably defy our efforts and remain a word of “uncertain origin.”
The earliest conjecture about the derivation of scoundrel belongs to Stephen Skinner, the author of an excellent etymological dictionary (1671; it appeared posthumously). Naturally, his scholarship reflected the state of the art reached by roughly 1650, but Skinner was a resourceful and circumspect philologist and made many interesting suggestions. He cited Italian scondaruolo “blindman’s buff” (misprinted as scondamolo); hence “a hider.” The connection is not good: a scoundrel’s most conspicuous feature would not have been his hiding from the law. But the root of scondaruolo is the same as in abscond, from Old French, from Latin (abs- is a variant of ab “away,” and condere means “put together, stow”). The OED would have agreed to trace scoundrel to Anglo-French escondre “abscond,” but for the late date of its first occurrence. Even if we dismiss scondaruolo as not related directly to scoundrel, we should admire Skinner for coming so close to what may have been the right solution.
With minor amusing variations (for instance, a scoundrel is one, “who, conscious of his baseness, hides himself”: are scoundrels habitually torn by remorse?), Skinner’s etymology occupied a place of honor until the appearance of Skeat’s dictionary (1882), but there was no lack of other proposals: from Old Engl. sconde “disgrace” (and scondlic “base, ignominious, disgraceful”), from scummer (scoundrel = scum), from German Schandkerl “villain” (that is, Schand-kerl; Kerl means “fellow”), and even from two Scottish Gaelic roots: sgon “bad, vile, worthless” and droil (or droll) “idler.” Those were shots in the dark. But one etymology should be quoted almost in full: “I rather take it [scoundrel] to come from the A.-S. [Anglo-Saxon] onscunian or scunian, to shun…, and to be connected with the Scotch to scouner or scunner, and the substantive scunner, one of the meanings of which given by Jamieson is an object of loathing, any person or thing which excites disgust. Scoundrel will then be scunnerel, a diminutive of scunner.” F.J.V., the author of this derivation, refers to other examples of inserted d (c