If you call someone a scallywag, you mean that they behave badly but you like them, so you find it difficult to be really angry with them.
[informal, old-fashioned]
It's his idea of a joke, I suppose, the scallywag.
scallywag in British English
(ˈskælɪˌwæɡ)
noun
1. informal
a scamp; rascal
2.
(after the US Civil War) a White Southerner who supported the Republican Party and its policy of Black emancipation. Scallywags were viewed as traitors by their fellow Southerners
Also called: scalawag, scallawag
Word origin
C19: (originally undersized animal) of uncertain origin
scallywag in American English
(ˈskæliˌwæg; ˈskæləˌwæg)
US
noun
1. Informal
a scamp; rascal
2.
scalawag (sense 2)
Examples of 'scallywag' in a sentence
scallywag
`Dressing-gown,' the sergeant mouthed, presumably so as not to get the scallywag going.