Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One of a class of French brigands of about the twelfth century, who infested the roads in companies on horse or foot, and sometimes served as military mercenaries. They differed little from earlier and later organizations of the same kind throughout Europe, under various names.
- noun Hence, any undisciplined, plundering soldier, or brigand.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The map is part of an 86-page book of 16th century sailing directions, published in French and known as a routier, or rutter.
Mariners' map that shaped Scotland set to fetch GBP 30,000 2007
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The map is part of an 86-page book of 16th century sailing directions, published in French and known as a routier, or rutter.
Archive 2007-01-01 2007
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"routier," or knight of the road, who plundered that country without mercy.
A Monk of Fife Andrew Lang 1878
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“She keeps it alone, I hope!” replied Maitre Pierre, with some emphasis; “I am vieux routier [one who is experienced in the ways of the world], and none of those upon whom feigned disorders pass for apologies.”
Quentin Durward 2008
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Now our thirteenth-century rotors and rulers may represent Old Fr. routier, and have been names applied to a mercenary soldier or a vagabond.
The Romance of Names Ernest Weekley 1909
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I am a _vieux routier_, an old campaigner in this world of men and women.
The Mountebank William John Locke 1896
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But the _routier_ chiefs were not tied to any one castle as their home; they shifted quarters from one rock to another, from one province to another as suited them, whereas the seigneur had his home that had belonged to his forefathers and which he hoped to transmit to his son.
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The very suburbs of Paris were infested by the forays of this desperate _routier_, as such highway robbers were called; the supplies of previsions were cut off, and the citizens had petitioned King Henry that he would relieve them from so intolerable an enemy.
The Caged Lion Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862
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Bedford, and he guessed it to belong to a certain M'Kay, whose clan regarded themselves as at feud with the Stewarts, and of whom he had heard as living a wild _routier_ life.
The Caged Lion Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862
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"She keeps it alone, I hope!" replied Maitre Pierre, with some emphasis; "I am vieux routier [one who is experienced in the ways of the world], and none of those upon whom feigned disorders pass for apologies."
Quentin Durward Walter Scott 1801
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