Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Present participle of
royster .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Willie got up and fetched a large old family Bible from a shelf, and laid it on the table before his mother, who read a chapter and prayed with her son; after which Willie gave her one of his "roystering" kisses and went to bed.
Fighting the Flames 1859
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"Yes, I was," replied the boy, going up to his mother, and giving her what he styled a "roystering" kiss, which she appeared to like, although she was scarcely able to bear it, being thin and delicately formed, and somewhat weak from bad health.
Fighting the Flames 1859
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The old roystering crowd was there, and, as of old, three frost-bitten sailors were there, fresh from the long traverse from the Arctic, survivors of a ship's company of seventy-four.
The Wit of Porportuk 2010
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Dashes by me with half a hundred mounted, able-bodied, roystering kanakas in his train who would be better at hard work and looking after their future, for he will never be king of Hawaii.
ON THE MAKALOA MAT 2010
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Unlike the guard of the new Manchester mail, YOUR guard is at home in his new place, and has roystering highwaymen and gallant desperadoes ever within call.
Sketches by Boz 2007
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Never were such jolly, roystering, rollicking, merry – making blades, as the jovial crew of Grogzwig.
Nicholas Nickleby 2007
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He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the bluchers.
Oliver Twist 2007
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And my lady, I dare say, makes a little sermon, and asks why we gentlemen will go to idle coffee-houses and run the risk of meeting roaring, roystering Will Esmonds?
The Virginians 2006
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When children come into the library, we put the inkstand and the watch on the high shelf, until they be a little older; and nature has set the sun and moon in plain sight and use, but laid them on the high shelf, where her roystering boys may not in some mad
Uncollected Prose 2006
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Peers at the period; and a House of Commons; and my Lord Mayor and his corporation; and a roystering noisy University, whereof the students made no small disturbances nightly, patronised the roundhouse, ducked obnoxious printers and tradesmen, and gave the law at the Crow Street Theatre.
knitandpurl commented on the word roystering
It seems like this is more often spelled as roister and therefore "roistering" but there's this, from The Old Curiosity Shop:
"This candid declaration tended rather to increase than restrain Mr Quilp's eccentricities, and Richard Swiveller, astonished to see him in such a roystering vein, and drinking not a little himself, for company, — began imperceptibly to become more companionable and confiding, so that, being judiciously led on by Mr Quilp, he grew at last very confiding indeed." (p 227 in the Penguin English Library edition)
December 1, 2007