Definition
A term of opprobrium applied to a person of bad character, implying rascality, villainy, or a want of honor and integrity. In defamation law, "scoundrel" carries legal significance primarily in the context of what it does not do: calling a person a scoundrel is not actionable per se in slander. A plaintiff injured by the epithet cannot recover general damages without pleading and proving special damages — that is, actual, concrete loss flowing from the utterance.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A mean, worthless fellow; a rascal; a villain; a person without honor or virtue.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A mean, worthless fellow; a rascal; a villain; a man without honor or virtue.
The common meaning and the legal meaning are nearly identical in substance — both describe a person of low moral character. The legal significance lies not in what the word means but in what it fails to trigger. Despite being a sharp personal insult, courts treated it as too vague and general to support a slander action without proof of actual harm. The gap, in other words, is procedural and doctrinal rather than semantic.
Common Confusion
"Scoundrel" is sometimes grouped with words that are actionable per se — terms whose utterance alone entitles a plaintiff to presumed damages without proof of actual loss. This is incorrect. Historical courts drew a line between insults imputing a specific crime, a loathsome disease, or unfitness for a trade or profession (actionable per se) and general terms of moral disapproval like "scoundrel," "rascal," or "villain" (not actionable per se). The distinction matters because the latter category requires special damages to sustain a cause of action.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering "scoundrel" in historical legal materials should treat it as a doctrinal marker in slander law, not merely as colorful period vocabulary. The term appears most frequently in nineteenth-century defamation cases as an example of an epithet that fails the actionability threshold — making it useful for understanding how courts calibrated the boundary between compensable and non-compensable speech.
The cross-reference to Bouvier's Institutes (n. 2250) and Chitty's Pleadings appears consistently across all historical dictionary entries and reflects a settled common law position rather than contested doctrine. Researchers tracing slander doctrine will find this citation cluster helpful for locating the broader common law framework governing opprobrious language.
One research trap: modern defamation law has substantially restructured the actionable per se categories, and constitutional developments following New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) have overlaid the common law framework with First Amendment constraints. Historical entries on terms like "scoundrel" reflect pre-constitutional-transformation doctrine and should not be read as statements of current law. The special damages requirement for non-per-se slander survives in many jurisdictions, but the surrounding doctrinal landscape has changed considerably.
A second trap: the historical entries do not discuss written defamation (libel). Whether calling someone a scoundrel in print would have been treated differently — libel law historically extended further than slander law in presuming damages — is a question the dictionary entries leave unaddressed.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical sources agree on the essential legal point: "scoundrel" is not actionable per se in slander, and recovery requires special damages. The formulation is nearly identical across Black's first and second editions, with Bouvier adding the useful clarification that while general damages will not lie, special damages may be recovered upon proof of actual loss. This convergence signals settled doctrine, not a contested question at the time of compilation.
None of the historical entries venture into libel, into criminal libel doctrine, or into the question of whether context (such as utterance in a professional setting) might affect the analysis. Chitty's Practical Treatise on Pleading, cited by Bouvier, would be the appropriate source for procedural detail on how special damages were pleaded in such cases.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Defamation; Slander; Actionable Per Se