A scoundrel is someone who has no ethics.
The French term truand came to our language as truhán . The concept can also be used with an accent on the U and, therefore, without an accent mark.
This is an adjective that describes an individual who lacks ethics and whose morals are questionable. For example: “You are a scoundrel! Give me back the clothes you stole from me” , “Don't hang out with that scoundrel: you'll get into trouble” , “When I was a kid I acted like a scoundrel, but then I straightened out” .
Examples of scoundrel
Let's take the case of a man who makes a living by swindling people. Every morning, this individual puts makeup on one eye to make it look like he's been hit and approaches passersby to ask for money, claiming that he's just been mugged. People, moved, often show their solidarity and give him bills and coins. Given this behavior based on deception, one could say that the man is a scoundrel.
The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy ( RAE ) recognizes another meaning of truhán: the notion can be applied to someone who, by appealing to grimaces, jokes and gossip, tries to entertain others. A young man who, in a bar, invents stories and performs imitations to entertain the patrons, can be described as a truhán.
It can be said that a thief is a scoundrel.
The term in music
Within the musical field, the word in question also plays a leading role. A good example of this is one of the most emblematic songs by the famous Spanish artist Julio Iglesias . We are referring to the composition “Soy un truhán, soy un señor” (I am a rogue, I am a gentleman) , which was written for him by the members of the well-known Dúo Dinámico , Manuel de la Calva and Ramón Arcusa .
In 1977 , within the album “A mis 33 años” , that song was presented, which was made at the request of the singer himself so that through it people could get to know him a little better.
A song that catapulted a group of Catalan comic actors called Tricicle to fame. The mime version they performed on a hugely successful television show, “Un, dos, tres…responda otra vez” , made them become a true phenomenon in Spain in the 1980s .
The concept of the scoundrel in cinema
In the cinema field, we can highlight the production “The Scoundrel and His Pledge” . It is a 1980 feature film, directed by Walter Bernstein and starring Walter Matthau and Julie Andrews . It is a comedy that tells how an unscrupulous bookmaker one day decides to accept a penniless gambler’s six-year-old daughter as a pledge. What will happen is that, little by little, they will become fond of each other and begin to have a friendship.
“Truhanes” , on the other hand, is the title of a film directed by the Spaniard Miguel Hermoso that premiered in 1983 and that a decade later had a television adaptation. Both the film and the series starred Arturo Fernández and Francisco Rabal .