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A miscreant is a bad person who causes trouble or hurts people. It is a colourful, rather old or story-book word; police reports and daily talk more often say criminal, crook, or thug. You will meet it in novels, in newspapers that want a sharp tone, and sometimes in jokes. As an adjective it is rare now. It is stronger and more literary than mischief-maker, and it is not fond. Though actually, the older meaning was different: it first meant a person who believed the wrong thing — an unbeliever or a heretic — from an old French word for “mis-believe.” English kept the word and slowly used it for anyone villainous, belief or not. Writers today almost always mean the later sense. If you use it of a living person in ordinary talk, it can sound theatrical, as if you had out of a tale.
惡棍；歹徒（書面、故事口吻；不是指壞人的日常詞）
組成來自古法文 mescreant「信錯的人」，是 mescreire（誤信；現代法文 mécréant 是同源詞）的現在分詞。原先指信仰不對的人，後來才變成「惡人」。
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
miscreantadj/ˈmɪs.kɹi.ənt/
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Lacking in conscience or moral principles; unscrupulous.
- How do we get fair treatment when confronting miscreant workers sometimes means no care at all?
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lifestylereligiontheologyHolding an incorrect religious belief.
miscreantnoun/ˈmɪs.kɹi.ənt/
- 1
One who has behaved badly, or illegally.
- The teacher sent the miscreants to see the school principal.
- Thou art a Traitor, and a Miſcreant; Too good to be ſo, and too bad to liue, Since the more faire and chriſtall is the skie, The vglier ſeeme the cloudes that in it flye:
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One not restrained by moral principles; an unscrupulous villain.
- A meagre Catchpole hurries me to fail; No Miscreant, so remorseless, ever tore Thy Journals, Fog, or knock'd at Franklin's door
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lifestylereligiontheologyOne who holds a false religious belief; a misbeliever.
- Now wil the Chriſtian miſcreants be glad, Ringing with ioy their ſuperſtitious belles: And making bonfires for my ouerthrow. But ere I die thoſe foule Idolaters Shall make me bonfires with their filthy bones, […]
- Arise thou cursed Miscreaunt, That hast with knightlesse guile and trecherous train Faire knighthood fowly shamed
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。