[f. prec. sb.]
1. intr. To act the blackguard (sense 3, 6); to ‘loaf,’ play the vagabond.
1786. Burns, Holy Fair, ix. An’ there a batch of wabster lads, Blackguardin frae Kilmarnock, For fun this day.
2. trans. To treat as a blackguard; to abuse or revile in scurrilous terms.
1823. Cobbett, Weekly Reg., XLVIII. 642/2. You, in your quality of Saint, may claim a right to becall and to blackguard, as much as you please, any portion of the rest of mankind.
1837. Southey, Lett. (1856), IV. 518. The ‘Monthly Review,’… turned against me afterwards and literally blackguarded ‘Madoc.’
1872. Lever, Ld. Kilgobbin, xxi. (1875), 130. I’d bear a deal of blackguarding from the press.
Hence Blackguarding vbl. sb. (see above).
