devil-may-care
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more devil-may-care
form: most devil-may-care
Etymology: From attributive use of a shortened idiom of the original oath or expression: The devil may care, but I do not.
Senses: examples: text: This is the sort of witchery, not easily defined—but, by its votaries, pretty sensibly felt, in hunting the fox. The light-hearted, high-spirited stripling, when cigaring it careless to cover, with a kind of a knowing demi-devil-may-care twist of his beaver, receives in his transit a benison from every real friend of the chase he may chance to pass; and the airy, eager zeal of the youthful aspirant to rolls, tumbles, and the brush, will flush his memory with the frolic gayety of other days, and animate his mind with reflections most welcome to his heart.
ref: 1837, "Venator", The Warwickshire Hunt from 1795 to 1836, Prefatory Remarks
text: Not that this would have worried him much, anyway—he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person.
ref: 1837, Charles Dickens, chapter 49, in The Pickwick Papers:
text: Now, upon his whole person, from the crown of his unkempt head down to his broken, dusty boots, there yet clung that air of jaunty, devil-may-care rakishness.
ref: 1910, Jeffery Farnol, chapter 3, in The Broad Highway:
text: Collins' death can be put down to his devil-may-care attitude—his decision to journey through hostile territory in a large convoy, the inadequate choice of the members of the convoy, and the tactics he adopted in the ambush. For all the debate about ballistics and entry and exit wounds, and the use of powerful historical imaginations, it matters more that Collins was killed than how he was killed. Concentration on the events at Béal na mBláth has, moreover, often meant a failure to place them in the overall context of the war.
ref: 1988, Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War:
text: Tiny Albania emerged from communist dictatorship in 1990 only to tumble into a rough world of gangsters, fraudulent financial machinations and incompetent governance, exacerbated by lawless capitalism and devil-may-care politics.
ref: 2011 May 21, Altin Raxhimi, “The Trouble with Democracy: Albania's Worrisome Vote”, in Time:
text: It is no real surprise that half the UK's stations and 5,000 miles of route were recommended to close. Nevertheless, some great mistakes were made in Marples' devil-may-care purge that left commuters stranded and seaside resorts without a lifeline.
ref: 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 50:
synonyms: word: happy-go-lucky
word: heedless
word: imprudent
word: rash
word: airy
word: at ease
word: at peace
word: carefree
word: careless
word: casual
word: chill
word: cool
word: devil-may-care
word: easy-breezy
word: easygoing
word: happy-go-lucky
word: indifferent
word: insouciant
word: laid-back
word: leisurely
word: lighthearted
word: loose
word: mellow
word: nonchalant
word: pococurante
word: relaxed
word: serene
word: solute
word: tranquil
word: unanxious
word: unbothered
word: unconcerned
word: undisturbed
word: unruffled
word: untroubled
word: unworried
word: wanton
word: daring
word: devil-may-care
word: headstrong
word: heedless
word: impetuous
word: imprudent
word: impulsive
word: precipitant
word: precipitate
word: precipitous
word: quick-and-dirty
word: rash
word: reckless
word: sudden
word: temeritous
glosses: Carefree, reckless, irresponsible.