Word.ws English Dictionary

roister-doister

roister-doister noun: a swaggering buffoon; a foolish braggart.

Noun

roister-doister (plural roister-doisters)

  1. (archaic, derogatory) A swaggering buffoon; a foolish braggart.
    • A very artificiall beginning, to moove attention or to procure good-liking in the reader, unlesse he wrote onely to roister-doisters, and hacksters, or at least to jesters, and vices.1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierces Supererogation

Forms of roister-doister

pluralroister-doisters

Origin of roister-doister

After Ralph Roister Doister, a 16th-century comic play by Nicholas Udall. See roister (“to engage in riotous behaviour”).

Questions about roister-doister

What does roister-doister mean?
Roister-doister means a swaggering buffoon; a foolish braggart.
What part of speech is roister-doister?
Roister-doister is a noun.
What is the plural of roister-doister?
The plural of roister-doister is roister-doisters.

Words near roister-doister in the dictionary

  1. rois fainéants
  2. Roisin
  3. roist
  4. roisted
  5. roister
  6. roister-doister
  7. roister-doisters
  8. roistered
  9. roisterer
  10. roisterers
  11. roistering

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roister-doister (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “roister-doister.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roister-doister. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.