Lar″ri‐kin (?), n. [Cf. E. dial. larrikin a mischievous or frolicsome youth, larrick lively, careless, larack to trolic, to romp.] A rowdy street loafer; a rowdyish or noisy ill-bred fellow; — variously applied, as to a street blackguard, a street Arab, a youth given to horse-play, etc. — a. Rowdy; rough; disorderly.
Mobs of unruly larrikins. Sydney Daily Telegraph.
☞ Larrikin is often popularly explained by the following anecdote (which is without foundation): An Irish policeman at Melbourne, on bringing a notorious rough into court, was asked by the magistrate what the prisoner had been doing, and replied, “He was a-larrikin' about the streets.”