One of my surprise delights about being a fiction author is how often I get to do etymology research when I’m writing. I want to ensure that the words my characters use are believable and period-appropriate. I don’t want to throw readers out of the story and world.
Today’s delightful additions to this part of the process are crony and riffraff. (So yes, I’m having a delightful morning and I’m writing for a somewhat self-important character.)
Riffraff is of Germanic origin and entered into the English vernacular in the late 15th century from French. It was originally “riff and raff,” in English, from the French “rif et raf,” meaning “one and all, every bit.”
Merriam-Webster includes a different spelling than the one from Oxford Languages on Google for the Middle English use of the word, ryffe raffe.
Crony came into English in the mid-17th century as slang used by Cambridge university students. Most sources believe it’s from the Greek “khronios,” meaning long-lasting, derived from “khronos,” meaning time. The implication is a close friend of long-standing.
The term “crony” gained a negative connotation in the United States in the 1940s as a way to describe the Truman administration. Several political commentators at the time criticized the administration for “cronyism.” You can read more about that and how the term “crony capitalism” emerged from it in the 1980s in this lovely article by Mental Floss.
(Both of these initial etymologies are from Oxford Languages, found through Google search.)