Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day is raffish, an adjective describing unconventionality that is both careless and attractive. Someone with raffish charm can quickly win others over. Historically, newspapermen were seen as appealingly raffish figures. These individuals were depicted as both flawed, like a bum who drank too much, and heroic, like a knight-errant fighting injustice. The word raffish originates from the English noun raff. This noun means "rubbish" and was once synonymous with riffraff. Riffraff itself comes from Anglo-French and means "altogether." Over time, raff came to specifically mean "rabble" or a disreputable crowd. It was this sense of a ragtag, untidy group that gave rise to the adjective raffish. The adjective was first used in the late 1700s.