rogue

Uncertain. From either:

• Earlier English roger (“a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge”), possibly from Latin rogō (“I ask”).
• Middle French rogue (“arrogant, haughty”), from Old Northern French rogre (“aggressive”), from Old Norse hrokr (“excess, exuberance”), for which see Icelandic hroki (“arrogance”), though OED does not document this.
• Celtic; see Breton rog (“haughty”).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: rōg, IPA^(key): /ˈɹəʊ̯ɡ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɹoʊ̯ɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊɡ

rogue (plural rogues)

1. A scoundrel, rascal or unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person.
   • 1834, Sir Walter Scott, The abbott: being a sequel to The monastery, Volume 19‎:

     And meet time it was, when yon usher, vinegar-faced rogue that he is, began to inquire what popish trangam you were wearing […]

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 44, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     He had told more lies in his time, and undergone more baseness of stratagem in order to stave off a small debt, or to swindle a poor creditor, than would have sufficed to make a fortune for a braver rogue.

   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎:

     “… No rogue e’er felt the halter draw, with a good opinion of the law, and perhaps my own detestation of the law arises from my having frequently broken it. […]”

   • 2012 July 18, Scott Tobias, “The Dark Knight Rises”, in AV Club‎:

     As The Dark Knight Rises brings a close to Christopher Nolan’s staggeringly ambitious Batman trilogy, it’s worth remembering that director chose The Scarecrow as his first villain—not necessarily the most popular among the comic’s gallery of rogues, but the one who set the tone for entire series.

2. A mischievous scamp.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:

     Ah, you sweet little rogue, you!

3. A vagrant.
4. (computing) Malware that deceitfully presents itself as antispyware.
   • 2009 October 29, Larry Seltzer, “Scareware Tops Microsoft's Malware List”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

     An entry in the Microsoft Malware Protection Center's Threat Research & Response Blog shows that rogue AV, also known as scareware, is ruling the malware roost, as 6 top of the 10 malicious programs removed by the MSRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool) in the US in October were 'rogues'.

   • 2013 October 31, “Windows PUPs: how do I remove potentially unwanted programs?”, in The Guardian:

     Next, click the "Installed on" heading in the Windows 7 uninstaller to sort the list by date, and see if any programs have the same date and time stamps as your rogues.

   • 2014 August 20, Ian Barker, “Microsoft detects fall in fake antivirus traffic”, in BetaNews:

     Now though researchers at Microsoft's Malware Protection Center are reporting a downward trend in the traffic generated by some of the most popular rogues over the past 12 months.

5. An aggressive animal separate from the herd, especially an elephant.
6. A plant that shows some undesirable variation.
   • 2000 Carol Deppe, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, Totnes: Chelsea Green Pub.

     Maintaining varieties also requires selection, however. It's usually referred to as culling or roguing. ...we examine the [plant] population and eliminate the occasional rogue.

7. (roleplaying games) A character class focusing on stealthy conduct.

• See Thesaurus:villain

• See Thesaurus:maverick

• →⇒ Irish: rógaire
• →⇒ Irish: rógánta

rogue (comparative more rogue, superlative most rogue)

1. (of an animal, especially an elephant) Vicious and solitary.
2. (by extension) Large, destructive and unpredictable.
3. (by extension) Deceitful, unprincipled.
   • 2004, Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage:

     In the minds of Republican hard-liners, the "Silent Majority" of Americans who had elected the President, and even Nixon's two Democrat predecessors, China was a gigantic nuke-wielding rogue state prepared to overrun the free world at any moment.

4. Mischievous, unpredictable.
   • 2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55:

     Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.

rogue (third-person singular simple present rogues, present participle roguing or rogueing, simple past and past participle rogued)

1. (horticulture) To cull; to destroy plants not meeting a required standard, especially when saving seed, rogue or unwanted plants are removed before pollination.
   • 2000 Carol Deppe, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, Totnes: Chelsea Green Pub.

     Maintaining varieties also requires selection, however. It's usually referred to as culling or roguing. ...we examine the [plant] population and eliminate the occasional rogue.

2. (transitive, dated) To cheat.
   • 1883, Prairie Farmer, volume 55, page 29:

     And then to think that Mark should have rogued me of five shiners! He was clever—that's a fact.

3. (obsolete) To give the name or designation of rogue to; to decry.
   • 1678, R[alph] Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: The First Part; wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted; and Its Impossibility Demonstrated, London: […] Richard Royston, […], →OCLC:

     he Atheists may endeavour to rogue and ridicule all incorporeal Substance

4. (intransitive, obsolete) To wander; to play the vagabond; to play knavish tricks.
   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     if hee be but once so taken idlely roguing

• rouge the shade of red

“rogue”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• orgue, rouge

• IPA^(key): /ʁɔɡ/

Attested since the 18th century. From Middle French *rogue, of Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *hrugną (“spawn, roe”), itself possibly from Proto-Indo-European *krek- (“spawn, frogspawn”). The immediate source is either Dutch roge or Old Norse hrogn. The late attestation speaks for Dutch origin. However, the Trésor de la langue française says the word is especially Norman, which makes Old Norse origin plausible. Cognate with English roe, which see.

rogue f (plural rogues)

1. roe (fish eggs)

Inherited from Middle French rogue, from Old French rogre (“haughty; aggressive; exhilarated”), from Old Norse hrokr (“excess; insolence”), for which see Icelandic hroki (“arrogance”). Cognate with Icelandic hrokur (“arrogance”).

rogue (plural rogues)

1. haughty
2. contemptuous
3. roguish

• “rogue”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

rogue

1. inflection of rogar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

From Old French rogre (“haughty; aggressive; exhilarated”), from Old Norse hrokr (“excess; insolence”), for which see Icelandic hroki (“arrogance”). Cognate with Icelandic hrokur (“arrogance”).

rogue m or f (plural rogues)

1. arrogant; haughty

rogue

1. inflection of rogar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative