Word of the Day Archive
Thursday April 17, 2008
roister \ROY-stur\ , intransitive verb:
1. To engage in boisterous merrymaking; to revel; to carouse.
2. To bluster; to swagger.
For some people, she was the archetype of the roistering New Russians, with their love of partying, fast cars and foreign holidays.
-- Alan Philps, "Brezhnev's outrageous daughter dies at 69", Daily Telegraph, July 2, 1998
Back in our expatriate days, we roistering provincials, slap-happy to be in Paris, drunk on the beauty of our surroundings, were fearful of retiring to our Left Bank hotel rooms lest we wake up back home, retrieved by parents who would remind us of how much they had invested in our educations, and how it was time for us to put our shoulders to the wheel.
-- Mordecai Richler, Barney's Version
. . .the bullying, lying, lily-livered, lecherous, roistering, brandy-swigging, battle-fleeing, toad-eating Harry Paget Flashman, whose charming roguery has won him a worldwide following.
-- Michael Browning, "Flashman' Trio Fine Fun, Leaves Us Shouting 'More!'", Palm Beach Post, September 24, 2000
Roister is probably from Middle French rustre, "a boor, a clown; clownish," from Latin rusticus, "rustic," from rus, "country."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for roister
