Radge adjective mad, wild, enraged, obstreperous; noun a wild person
‘“Oh, ye think it’s nothing, do you, that a man should cheek up to ye in public, like a common radge?”’ (The Fiery Cross)
Radge is a variant of ‘rage’ and in Scots usage generally means wild or uncontrollable, as in ‘wi a glent in his een like a radge dug’ from Thomas Clark’s The Boggin Beginnin (2021). Or even a radge bear: ‘But yin day Hera pit the evil eye on Hercules. She cast a spell that made his heid bile up wi rage and it drove him roon the bend. The big man went reeling through the hoose like a radge bear spittin and skelpin at everythin that got in his wey.’ (Hercules: Bampots and Heroes, Matthew Fitt, 2005).
As well as denoting a state of agitation, radge can denote a wild or agitated person. On the theme of historical characters represented in a less than flattering light, there is this from the Herald (1998), which most likely references Shakespeare: ‘Aye, ah dae. Ah know ma jaicket’s oan a shaky nail, but it wisnae me, ya auld radge. It was that frigging fop, the Earl of Oxford, him and wee Frankie Bacon!’
Several radge characters have appeared in Scottish writing at the hands of well-known authors such as Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh. This is from Rankin’s Black & Blue (1999) ‘He’d done most of the major drugs in his time: Billy Whizz, skag, Morningside speed… On dope, he was a small problem, an irritation; off dope, he was pure radge. He was Mental.’ And this from Welsh’s Trainspotting (1993): ‘Sick Boy slapped Begbie on the back, tryin tae encourage the radge, tae gie him mair rope so that he’ll come oot with another crass Begbie classic or two.’
Radge hasn’t always just meant mad or wild; in the 1800s it also meant lewd or wanton. The two meanings are referenced here in a later article (2015) by R Wilson in the Herald: ‘A wild mob they wir, richt radge an randie.’
A radge might even take a radgie (fly off the handle). Here’s an example, also from Matthew Fitt, but this time from Pure Radge (1996).
‘and in amangst it
the stushie
the collieshangie
the reel-rall
rummle-tummle
ramrace of a fecht
ah’ll hae ye
tak a radgie
loss the rag
and stove yir heid in pal’.