All 5 Uses of
rogue
in
The Winter's Tale
- I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autolycus.†
Scene 4.3
- Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put me into this apparel.†
Scene 4.3 *
- Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big and spit at him, he'd have run.†
Scene 4.3
- An old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace!†
Scene 4.4
- I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him: if he think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else belongs to't.†
Scene 4.4
Definition:
not normal and possibly dangerous -- possibly alone
The exact meaning of rogue can depend upon its context. For example:
- "a rogue state" -- (politics) a dangerous country that ignores international conventions
- "a rogue animal" -- (especially of an elephant) dangerous and not living with or like its kind
- "a rogue trader" -- (finance) an employee who makes unauthorized and improper securities trades
- "a rogue wave" -- (oceanography) a dangerous wave that is much larger than others around it
- "rogue cells" -- (biology) tumor cells
- "He is a rouge." -- someone who is deceitful and unprincipled (though possibly liked despite that)
- "a roguish grin" -- mischievous (causing minor trouble in a playful, harmless way)