Word.ws English Dictionary

roynish

roynish adjective: mangy; scabby.

Adjective

roynish (comparative more roynish, superlative most roynish)

  1. (obsolete) Mangy; scabby.
    Synonyms:
    reef
  2. Mean, paltry, vulgar or troublesome.
    • My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
      Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • Their voices had a roynish sound that grated on Covenant's nerves—he had too many horrid memories of urviles—but he suppressed his discomfort1980, Stephen Donaldson, The Wounded Land: The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Book One, Hachette UK, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    contemptible

Synonyms of roynish

All synonyms of roynish

Forms of roynish

comparativemore roynish
superlativemost roynish
alternative formroinish

Origin of roynish

French rogneux, from rogne (“scab, mange, itch”).

Questions about roynish

What does roynish mean?
Roynish means mangy; scabby.
What part of speech is roynish?
Roynish is an adjective.

Words near roynish in the dictionary

  1. ROYGBIV
  2. Roylance
  3. Roylances
  4. Royle
  5. Royles
  6. roynish
  7. Roynon
  8. roys
  9. Royse
  10. Royses
  11. roysh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roynish (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.

Last updated:

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