Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Deceitful; unprincipled.
  • adjective Playfully mischievous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Vagrant; vagabond.
  • Knavish; fraudulent; dishonest.
  • Mischievous; playful.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Vagrant.
  • adjective Resembling, or characteristic of, a rogue; knavish.
  • adjective Pleasantly mischievous; waggish; arch.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective unprincipled or unscrupulous
  • adjective mischievous and playful

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective playful in an appealingly bold way
  • adjective lacking principles or scruples

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

rogue +‎ -ish

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Examples

  • Yes, at first this Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Drag Me To Hell) and Rob Tapert (Xena: Warrior Princess) produced show was known as the roguish series with lots of blood and lots of boobs.

    5 Shows You Should Be Watching | CurveHouse.com 2010

  • Satyrs are described as roguish but faint-hearted folk — subversive and dangerous, yet shy and cowardly.

    Pan and Satyrs James Gurney 2009

  • And there was, strangely enough, what Craddock could only describe as a roguish twinkle in her faded blue eyes.

    A Murder Is Announced Christie, Agatha, 1890-1976 1950

  • ’ (He vividly recalled the roguish black eyes of Mlle. Roland and her smile.) ‘But after all, while she was in the house, I kept myself in hand.

    Chapter II. Part I 1917

  • His persona there is what I suppose you would call roguish, impish, twinkling or some similarly emetic term and he simply cannot afford to get Private Eye involved in anything remotely controversial or interesting because of the danger that his mainstream audience would drop him as fast as Gerald Ratner's customers dropped him if they found out that he was mixed in in any real world nastiness like proper investigative journalism.

    Iain Dale's Diary 2009

  • My suspicion about the long-lived and very tiresome bacon craze is that the rise of vegetarianism and veganism, dietary choices often (but by no means always) promoted by the smug and priggish, has lent meat-eating a kind of roguish cachet, like letting your child go to play-date without his elbow pads.

    Stefan Beck: Meatopia: Meat-Up on Governors Island (PHOTOS) 2010

  • In Solitary Man, written and directed by the team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien and opening Friday (5/21/10) in limited release, Kalmen is played by Michael Douglas with exactly the kind of roguish charm that Douglas has perfected over the course of his career.

    Marshall Fine: Movie review: Solitary Man 2010

  • Only one nation above all others is a threat to world security and peace, and that nation is the most "roguish" of all.

    Comments on Helen Caldicott's New Book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer 2006

  • My dear man of moods! my good vagabond! my windlestraw of circumstance! constant only to one ideal -- the unattainable perfection in a kind of roguish art.

    Doom Castle Neil Munro

  • Now Empire is reporting that Rapunzel will be voiced by Mandy Moore, and that Chuck’s Levi will voice what’s being described as a roguish bandit in the Digital, 3D-animated, musical, action-adventure feature.

    Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi in Disney’s Rapunzel 2009

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