Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To engage in boisterous merrymaking; revel noisily.
- v. To behave in a blustering manner; swagger.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A rioter; a blusterer; a roisterer.
- n. [⟨ roister, verb] A drunken or riotous frolic; a spree.
- To bluster; swagger; bully; be bold, noisy, vaunting, or turbulent.
Wiktionary
- v. intransitive To engage in noisy, drunken, or riotous behavior.
- v. intransitive To walk with a swaying motion.
- n. archaic A roisterer.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To bluster; to swagger; to bully; to be bold, noisy, vaunting, or turbulent.
- n. See roisterer.
WordNet 3.0
- v. engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking
Etymologies
- From Old French rustre, from Latin rusticus. (Wiktionary)
- From obsolete roister, roisterer, probably from Old French rustre, ruffian, alteration of ruste, from Latin rūsticus, rustic; see rustic. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I talked him out of it that time, and he got to workin 'on the Fish Patrol, runnin' down the very guys he used to roister around with.”
“They keep inviting him out to hunt with them, to go drinking in the ale houses, to roister round the streets in masks, and he, nervously, declines.”
“Ay, you must know that my husband, he drank, loafed round the parish to roister and prate, wasted and trampled our gear under foot.”
“Rome ran herself; as the man in charge, he could do precisely what he wanted, which was to roister.”
“They didn't pray and then roister on Midwinter's Day.”
“Having fun with words can involve creative rhymes (“I do not roister with an oyster”) and nonce coinages (“my family was a scribacious lot”).”
Simon & Schuster: The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time
“He had a son, whose name was Tenot Dandin, a lusty, young, sturdy, frisking roister, so help me God! who likewise, in imitation of his peace-making father, would have undertaken and meddled with the making up of variances and deciding of controversies betwixt disagreeing and contentious party-pleaders; as you know,”
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
“In the meantime the lady was not very well content with the want of her paternosters, for they were one of her implements to keep her countenance by in the church; then thought with herself, This bold flouting roister is some giddy, fantastical, light-headed fool of a strange country.”
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
“Have a care, my roister, of the milk-pot, that is, the testicles.”
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
“This so incensed Panurge that he forthwith lifted his hand to have stricken him the dumb roister and given him a sound whirret on the ear, but that the respect and reverence which he carried to the presence of Pantagruel restrained his choler and kept his fury within bounds and limits.”
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘roister’.
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[Open] Correctly-spelled words that l...
Thanks to everyone who added to this list. (I moved it to a new URL, so all the words added on the first day are credited to me—sorry about that.)
(Here’s the original list with a slo...orignal, refect, collum, lightening, manakin, neumatic, mutch, miosis, radicle, tryptic, kyack, apatite and 119 more...
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Drunkie
Haay gusy! uiI lieke twebb sit e !!
alcoholize, usquebaugh, whiffled, vinous, enology, aleconner, gambrinous, alcofrolic, perfect barf, bibulous, bleezed, brannigan and 144 more...
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Stalking Darkness
Words and phrases from Lynn Flewelling's book, Stalking Darkness.
inquest, halyard, catamount, occlude, founder, more, grouse, grapple, water butt, antepenultimate, palimpsest, hob and 196 more...
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traipsin' 'long through dis 'ear book...
Words which are either entirely new to me or;
Words which I comprehend generally but would prefer a more precise definition.
venality, seigneurial, mendicant, perforce, manse, glebe, trenchant, saw, obstreperous, profligate, dissipation, galliard and 176 more...
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words I love
uncouth, milquetoast, clusterfuck, salacious, usurp, harpoon, unsavoury, bulwark, legerdemain, qualm, quagmire, trumps and 209 more...
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Umbersorrow
Intangible, anthropic.
States of being are listed on oofy.njiju, glark, deplore, afterlithe, tagmass, spuriosity, forkful, chelation, oding, ploat, botnet, quedeship and 477 more...
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learning
A list of words whose meanings I am learning, either because a) I don't know the meaning b) I know the meaning, but could stand to better appreciate certain inflections or secondary meanings or c) ...
louche, educe, loam, cob, sclerotic, palliate, axial, syndicalist, ecumenical, sally, fatuous, parvenu and 1381 more...
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Marginilia
intertextuality, queer, serendipity, eerie, semiotics, schadenfreude, calliope, logophile, marginalia, reductio ad absurdum, dabble, minutia and 141 more...
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conglomeration
wherewithal, wan, zoonotic, zoonosis, nebulous, nefarious, nascent, quiescent, quell, undercroft, unwitting, unutterable and 658 more...
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Dictionary.com Words of the Days of 2002
1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008
asseverate, sentient, malapropos, agitprop, fiat, nimiety, surreptitious, pleonasm, abominate, discursive, countervail, myrmidon and 113 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3250 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, R
retinol, rectory, rhubarb, rancor, recension, rood, redivivus, roborate, redound, ripsnorting, ragtag, recruit and 250 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
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The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
discovered while reading this book.
balustrade, desideratum, laity, elysium, lairage, lambing, banjaxed, incontinence, tintack, jamb, hors de combat, nolle prosequi and 75 more...
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scoutmd's Words
trousseau, retinue, cavil, beset, snit, forfend, nirvana, renascent, decamp, chocolate-box, flagrante delicto, philter and 24 more...
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Gravity's Rainbow
labile, memento mori, rallentando, ouspenskian, lascar, dodderer, prophesying, laudanum, empyrean, bedlamite, rondure, tantamount and 38 more...
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