Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To engage in boisterous merrymaking; revel noisily.
  • intransitive verb To behave in a blustering manner; swagger.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To bluster; swagger; bully; be bold, noisy, vaunting, or turbulent.
  • noun A rioter; a blusterer; a roisterer.
  • noun [⟨ roister, verb] A drunken or riotous frolic; a spree.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See roisterer.
  • intransitive verb To bluster; to swagger; to bully; to be bold, noisy, vaunting, or turbulent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To engage in noisy, drunken, or riotous behavior.
  • verb intransitive To walk with a swaying motion.
  • noun archaic A roisterer.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From obsolete roister, roisterer, probably from Old French rustre, ruffian, alteration of ruste, from Latin rūsticus, rustic; see rustic.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French rustre, from Latin rusticus.

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Examples

  • I talked him out of it that time, and he got to workin 'on the Fish Patrol, runnin' down the very guys he used to roister around with.

    Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon 2010

  • They keep inviting him out to hunt with them, to go drinking in the ale houses, to roister round the streets in masks, and he, nervously, declines.

    The White Queen Philippa Gregory 2009

  • They keep inviting him out to hunt with them, to go drinking in the ale houses, to roister round the streets in masks, and he, nervously, declines.

    The White Queen Philippa Gregory 2009

  • They keep inviting him out to hunt with them, to go drinking in the ale houses, to roister round the streets in masks, and he, nervously, declines.

    The White Queen Philippa Gregory 2009

  • Ay, you must know that my husband, he drank, loafed round the parish to roister and prate, wasted and trampled our gear under foot.

    Peer Gynt 2008

  • Ay, you must know that my husband, he drank, loafed round the parish to roister and prate, wasted and trampled our gear under foot.

    Peer Gynt 2008

  • Rome ran herself; as the man in charge, he could do precisely what he wanted, which was to roister.

    Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007

  • Rome ran herself; as the man in charge, he could do precisely what he wanted, which was to roister.

    Antony and Cleopatra Colleen McCullough 2007

  • They didn't pray and then roister on Midwinter's Day.

    Bridge of the Separator Turtledove, Harry 2005

  • Having fun with words can involve creative rhymes (“I do not roister with an oyster”) and nonce coinages (“my family was a scribacious lot”).

    The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time William Safire 2004

Comments

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  • When high tide arrives they get moister,

    Then quahogs and cherrystones roister,

    But twice-daily frolics

    Of mud-dwelling mollusks

    Are spurned by the dignified oyster.

    June 9, 2018

  • Sublime qms!

    June 10, 2018

  • It would be shellfish of me to want more praise.

    June 10, 2018

  • never thought I would like a piece of verse with the word 'moister' in it, but the conceit has now proven false.

    June 12, 2018