picaresque

American  

[pik-uh-resk] / ˌpɪk əˈrɛsk /

adjective

1. pertaining to, characteristic of, or characterized by a form of prose fiction, originally developed in Spain, in which the adventures of an engagingly roguish hero are described in a series of usually humorous or satiric episodes that often depict, in realistic detail, the everyday life of the common people.

   picaresque novel; picaresque hero.

2. of, relating to, or resembling rogues.

   Synonyms:

   raffish, devilish, rascally, prankish

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picaresque British  

/ ˌpɪkəˈrɛsk /

adjective

1. of or relating to a type of fiction in which the hero, a rogue, goes through a series of episodic adventures. It originated in Spain in the 16th century

2. of or involving rogues or picaroons

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Other Word Forms

• unpicaresque
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of picaresque

First recorded in 1800–10; from Spanish picaresco; see picaro, -esque

Explanation

Use the adjective picaresque to describe your favorite kind of story, if it involves characters having exciting, dangerous adventures. A picaresque novel features clever adventurers, often poor but spunky heroes who live by their wits and come out ahead in the end. This kind of book first became popular in Spain in the 1500s. Well known authors, including Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, later used a picaresque style for some of their work. It's easy to confuse picaresque, "rascally," with its near sound-alike, picturesque, or "lovely to look at."

Example Sentences

He had acquired a vaguely British accent and was, fittingly, the author of The Picaresque Novel, a study of rogues in literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

Picaresque, 593-page novel about a high-pressure, radical Manhattan adman, stranded in Seattle, who gets entangled with quacks, radical slickers and adventuresses, in a gory, last-scene fight saves his soul and his future father-in-law's brewery.

From Time Magazine Archive

The realism of Defoe and Hogarth, and the Spanish Picaresque novel.

From The Unity of Civilization by Various

Less superficial is the influence of Cervantes and his successors of the Picaresque school, down to the last and most representative of them in England, namely Defoe and Smollett. 

From Isopel Berners The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 by Seccombe, Thomas

It is not by any means the fact that the Picaresque novel of adventure is the only or the chief form of fiction which prescribes or admits these episodic excursions.

From Joseph Andrews Vol 1 by Fielding, Henry

Related Words

• anecdotal
• disjointed