n.
- An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal.
- One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp.
- A wandering beggar; a vagrant.
- A vicious and solitary animal, especially an elephant that has separated itself from its herd.
- An organism, especially a plant, that shows an undesirable variation from a standard.
- Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant.
- Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: a rogue wave; a rogue tornado.
- Operating outside normal or desirable controls: "How could a single rogue trader bring down an otherwise profitable and well-regarded institution?" (Saul Hansell).
v., rogued, rogu·ing, rogues. v.tr.
- To defraud.
- To remove (diseased or abnormal specimens) from a group of plants of the same variety.
To remove diseased or abnormal plants.
[Origin unknown.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
