Etymology

rogue

R1O1G2U1E1

Today it means: A scoundrel, rascal or unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person. Full definition →

Latin rogō ← Middle French rogue ← Old Northern French rogre
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

rogue · noun, adjective, verb1

  1. Celtic · derived from
  2. Old Norse · derived fromhrokr“excess, exuberance”
  3. Old Northern French · derived fromrogre“aggressive”
  4. Middle French · derived fromrogue“arrogant, haughty”
  5. Latin · derived fromrogō“to ask”
  6. English todayrogue

Uncertain. From either: * Earlier English roger (“a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge”), possibly from Latin rogō (“to 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”).

Rogue · proper noun2

English surname, originally a nickname derived from the adjective. See rogue.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.