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picaresque.

Of or pertaining to adventurers or rogues.

10 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/pɪkəˈɹɛsk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. Of or pertaining to adventurers or rogues.

  2. Characteristic of a genre of Spanish satiric novel dealing with the adventures of a roguish hero.

Where this word comes from

From picaro (“adventurer, rogue”) + -esque (suffix meaning ‘in the style or manner of’ forming adjectives), modelled after Spanish picaresco (“in the style or manner of a picaro; picaresque”), from pícaro (“rogue”) + -esco (suffix forming adjectives indicating a relation). Compare French picaresque (attested later than the English word), Italian picaresco, Portuguese picaresco.

noun/pɪkəˈɹɛsk/General-American, Received-Pronunciation
  1. A picaresque novel.

Where this word comes from

From picaro (“adventurer, rogue”) + -esque (suffix meaning ‘in the style or manner of’ forming adjectives), modelled after Spanish picaresco (“in the style or manner of a picaro; picaresque”), from pícaro (“rogue”) + -esco (suffix forming adjectives indicating a relation). Compare French picaresque (attested later than the English word), Italian picaresco, Portuguese picaresco.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.