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picaro

American  
[pik-uh-roh, pee-kuh-] / ˈpɪk əˌroʊ, ˈpi kə- /

noun

  • picaros
    plural
  1. a rogue or vagabond.


Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of picaro

First recorded in 1615–25, picaro is from the Spanish word pícaro rogue

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

His friend and foil is Rich Bone, a handsome and once successful corporate executive who sees life's flaws so clearly that he has retreated to become a sort of passive picaro.

From Time Magazine Archive

Initially it seemed to be the first-person adventures of an intellectual picaro charting his disenchantment with Los Angeles, the Esalen Institute, M.I.T., think tanks and other outposts of American culture.

From Time Magazine Archive

Even within sight of its grandest cities there are places of concealment—harbours of refuge—alike free to the political patriot, and the outlawed picaro.

From The Bandolero A Marriage among the Mountains by Mayne Reid

Master Reynard, in that romance of the Middle Ages of which he is the hero, is something like a picaro.

From The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare by J. J. Jusserand

I say "go over" because the life of a philosopher and the life of a picaro is the same.

From The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes; his fortunes and misfortunes as told by himself by Robert S. Rudder

In 1947, upon Gertrude Stein’s suggestion, Paul settled in Tangier, a seedy port city where artists, pirates, picaros, philistines, homosexuals, lapsed aristocrats, real aristocrats, and paupers posing as kings had found refuge for centuries.

From The New Yorker Jun. 13, 2014

Then it must have proceeded from one of the picaros behind the rock.

From The War Trail The Hunt of the Wild Horse by Mayne Reid

The only difference is that philosophers gave up all they had for their love of that kind of life, and picaros find it without giving up anything.

From The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes; his fortunes and misfortunes as told by himself by Robert S. Rudder

Philosophers despised those things as vain and transitory; while picaros don't care for them because they bring along cares and work—something that goes against their profession.

From The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes; his fortunes and misfortunes as told by himself by Robert S. Rudder

The picaros of this dirty little town are as conceited as pigs.

From Romance by Joseph Conrad

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