And cutpurse of course, which is earlier (mid-14th century, as cutte-purs), and may have kickstarted the whole thing. The variant pick-purse appears in the late 14th century, and from there we get pickpocket in the 1590s. Reminder that at least for women’s clothing, “pockets” at the time were detachable and fastened with string to a petticoat or something, so you could literally pick them up and leave, just like a purse (though rifling through the contents was also an option, and “pick” can mean either method).
I’m also very fond of scapegrace, which is a bit later (1767). Scape here is a verb, it means “to escape, flee from”. So a scapegrace is one who escapes the grace of god, a wild and reckless person, a scoundrel. I would hazard a guess that this isn’t street slang, but influenced by slang on one hand, following the same type of word formation as cutpurse, and by the word scapegoat on the other, which sounds similar but is formed differently: a scapegoat isn’t someone who escapes from a goat, it’s a goat that escapes (or just departs, or is driven out).
Of the words mentioned in that thread, most indeed appear within the proposed timeframe, 1550 to 1700 or thereabouts, which is by no coincidence at all the heyday of rogue literature: pickpocket (1590s), spendthrift (c.1600), swashbuckler (1550s), turncoat (1550s), lickspittle (1741), skinflint (1700), turnkey (1650s), cutthroat (1530s).
Others are modern: sellsword seems to be an invention of fantasy literature, appearing in the late 1960s. I first read it in ASOIAF, and so did a lot of people, I’ll bet. Scofflaw (I didn’t know that word, it’s brilliant!) is American English, from 1924: “The winning entry (from among more than 25,000) in a national contest during Prohibition to coin a word to characterize a person who drinks illegally.” There was a $200 prize! And I’m not sure about lackwit, Ngram Viewer doesn’t record any instances before the 1800s but that’s not solid evidence for anything.
Still, not only are they all “seedy” in some way (heh), but the word formation makes them seedy. It somehow evokes old-timey street slang and medieval or early modern rogues, even if it was coined in a fancy office by an educated author centuries later. What a fascinating phenomenon! Finally, I’ll note that the overwhelming majority of the words that form these compound nouns are monolyllables, so we end up with two syllables telling a whole story. It’s beautiful.
picklock (one who picks locks, a burglar), 1550s
drawlatch (one who draws latches, also a burglar), appears in A Caveat for Common Cursitors, which is the earliest English cant dictionary (1556)
whipjack (same source) This is more obscure, it does mean “one who whips a jack”, except that whip here means “take out, draw quickly”, and jack or jerk is a cant term for a fake licence, specifically one that says you’re a former sailor and therefore allowed to beg for alms. So a whipjack is a vagrant who bypasses anti-vagrancy laws with counterfeit papers: when the authorities come to shake him up, he whips a jack – flashes a badge, if you will – and says “not to worry, I have a permit!”
(word sources: etymonline.com, en.wiktionary.org)
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