rogue

[rohg] /roʊg/
noun
1.
a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel.
2.
a playfully mischievous person; scamp:
The youngest boys are little rogues.
3.
a tramp or vagabond.
4.
a rogue elephant or other animal of similar disposition.
5.
Biology. a usually inferior organism, especially a plant, varying markedly from the normal.
verb (used without object), rogued, roguing.
6.
to live or act as a rogue.
verb (used with object), rogued, roguing.
7.
to cheat.
8.
to uproot or destroy (plants, etc., that do not conform to a desired standard).
9.
to perform this operation upon:
to rogue a field.
adjective
10.
(of an animal) having an abnormally savage or unpredictable disposition, as a rogue elephant.
11.
no longer obedient, belonging, or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade:
a rogue cop; a rogue union local.
Origin
1555-65; apparently short for obsolete roger begging vagabond, orig. cant word
Related forms
outrogue, verb (used with object), outrogued, outroguing.
underrogue, noun
Can be confused
rogue, rouge.
Synonyms
1. villain, trickster, swindler, cheat, mountebank, quack. See knave.
Examples from the web for rogue
  • Even rogue-books began to multiply the artifices of narration.
  • Computers online tend to get hacked, of course, and you wouldn't want your local power plant under rogue control.
  • Jail time for some of these rogue cops would help settle the rest of them down.
  • But one rogue scientist, ordering by mail, could transform this material into a biological weapon.
  • Loudspeakers blared a warning not to run the rogue program, but it was too late.
  • Some of those rogue atoms float into a nearby gas cloud and stick to fine grains of dust there.
  • Researchers had observed that rogue reproducers were attacked by other worker ants.
  • And despite more than a few run-ins with his critics, he has generally managed to maintain the image of a lovable rogue.
  • Sometimes, it's by getting their arms from other rogue regimes.
  • Without access to these supplies, rogue chemists must resort to using chemicals from the grocery store and kitchen.
British Dictionary definitions for rogue

rogue

/rəʊɡ/
noun
1.
a dishonest or unprincipled person, esp a man; rascal; scoundrel
2.
(often jocular) a mischievous or wayward person, often a child; scamp
3.
a crop plant which is inferior, diseased, or of a different, unwanted variety
4.
  1. any inferior or defective specimen
  2. (as modifier): rogue heroin
5.
(archaic) a vagrant
6.
  1. an animal of vicious character that has separated from the main herd and leads a solitary life
  2. (as modifier): a rogue elephant
verb
7.
  1. (transitive) to rid (a field or crop) of plants that are inferior, diseased, or of an unwanted variety
  2. to identify and remove such plants
Word Origin
C16: of unknown origin; perhaps related to Latin rogāre to beg
Word Origin and History for rogue
n.

1560s, "idle vagrant," perhaps a shortened form of roger (with a hard -g-), thieves' slang for a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge, which is perhaps an agent noun in English from Latin rogare "to ask." Another theory [Klein] traces it to Celtic (cf. Breton rog "haughty"); OED says, "There is no evidence of connexion with F. rogue 'arrogant.' "

In playful or affectionate use, "one who is mischievous," 1590s. Meaning "large wild beast living apart from the herd" is from 1859, originally of elephants. Meaning "something uncontrolled or undisciplined" is from 1964. Also common in 17c. as a verb. Rogue's gallery "police collection of mug shots" is attested from 1859.

rogue in Technology

games
[Unix] A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character graphics, written under BSD Unix and subsequently ported to other Unix systems. The original BSD "curses(3)" screen-handling package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support "rogue(6)" and has since become one of Unix's most important and heavily used application libraries. Nethack, Omega, Larn, and an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the inspiration provided by "rogue(6)". See also nethack.
[Jargon File]