Now arch. or dial. [f. WRAP v. + RASCAL sb.3 Cf. hap-harlot.] A loose overcoat or great-coat, esp. worn in the 18th century; a surtout.
1716. Gay, Trivia, I. 58. The true Surtout. marg., A Joseph, a Wrap-rascal, etc.
1738. in W. C. Sydney, Eng. & Engl. 18th C. (1891), I. 121. Those loose kinds of great coats … which I have heard called ‘wraprascals.’
1802. Bentham, Ration. Judic. Evid. (1827), II. 191. A sort of knave’s coat; or (to use an appellative not many years ago applied in vulgar language to a particular sort of surtout) a wrap-rascal.
1845. Punch, VIII. 87. The shapeless articles which, under the various names of Taglionis, Wrap-rascals,… are now placed on the human form.
1884. Sala, Journ. due South, I. i. Muffled up in these hirsute wrap-rascals, and with wide-awake hats slouched over our eyes.
1893. Stevenson, Catriona, xxv. On the threshold, in a rough wraprascal…, stood James More.
fig. 1812. J. O., in Examiner, 23 Nov., 750/1. The specious cloak of Prudence,—that wraprascal of the worldly-minded.
1862. Thackeray, Round. Papers, Letts’s Diary. There is the cozy wraprascal, self-indulgence—how easy it is!
attrib. 1898. Weyman, Castle Inn, 192. A big dingy man in a wrap-rascal coat.
† b. (See quot.) Obs.
1796. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue (ed. 3), Wrap Rascal, a red cloak, called also a roquelaire.
