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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Roister

Roister \Roist"er\, v. i. [Probably fr. F. rustre boor, a clown, clownish, fr. L. rustucus rustic. See Rustic.] To bluster; to swagger; to bully; to be bold, noisy, vaunting, or turbulent.

I have a roisting challenge sent amongst The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks.
--Shak.

Roister

Roister \Roist"er\, n. See Roisterer.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
roister

"bluster, swagger, be bold, noisy, vaunting, or turbulent," 1580s, from an obsolete noun roister "noisy bully" (1550s, displaced by 19c. by roisterer), from Middle French ruistre "ruffian," from Old French ruiste "boorish, gross, uncouth," from Latin rusticus (see rustic (adj.)). Related: Roistered; roistering. Ralph Royster-Doyster is the title and lead character of what is sometimes called the first English comedy (Udall, 1555).

Wiktionary
roister

n. (context archaic English) A roisterer. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To engage in noisy, drunken, or riotous behavior. 2 (context intransitive English) To walk with a swaying motion.

WordNet
roister

v. engage in boisterous, drunken merry-making; "They were out carousing last night" [syn: carouse, riot]

Usage examples of "roister".

This invasion of the royal palace by the roistering canaille, this vile insult to royalty, was an affront beyond endurance.

With the roistering in full swing, the patrons were ordering ale and cider in measures: pottles, noggins, tappit hens, mutchkins, and thirdendales.

Harvard Beer, Yale Mixture, Princeton Pinochle, Chippee dances, hazing, roistering, rowdyism and the bulldog propensity.

Faith had just made her exit and would be heading for her dressing room to get out of her Royster outfit and into a roistering one.

Almost all his opinions and information were cannibalized from the educations and miseducations of his roistering companions in Vienna before the First World War.

The roistering young adventurer had become a successful and enterprising master pearler with expanding business interests.

As the train travelled on through the darkness, she felt anxious in case other drunken youths or girls came roistering down the coach, but her fellow passengers were quiet, most of them late commuters going home.

Viridovix marveled at how his friend had grown from a roistering young blood in Videssos to a farsighted chieftain over the course of a year.

Taking the minor issues however the hooligans and vandals had usually been drunks or roistering louts showing off to their girlfriends or comrades.

While the Fimbriani roistered their way through winter in Tigranocerta, Publius Clodius whispered in the ears of their centurions, and their centurions whispered in the ears of the rankers, and the rankers whispered in the ears of the Galatian troopers.

Conan was a gigantic barbarian adventurer who roistered and brawled and battled his way across half the prehistoric world to rise at last to the kingship of a mighty realm.

They rendered roistering chanteys of the sea, and there was much more volume than music.

At about five, after an interval reminiscent of one of Marmaduke's naps, the weekend roistering in the bar, the counterpoints of jukebox and Impacto machine, exhaustedly gave way to the shrieking gossip of the yard -with a cluck-cluck here and a whoof-whoof there, here a cheep, there a moo, everywhere an oink-oink.

Gard's first thought was that he had somehow managed to roister all the way north to Old Orchard Beach before collapsing.

At midnight he would wander through the roistering singers in the square and sit beside Strangman at his parties, hiding back under the shadow of the paddle-ship, watching the dancing and listening to the beat of the drums and guitars, overlayed in his mind by the insistent pounding of the black sun.