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runagate

[ruhn-uh-geyt]
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noun
  1. a fugitive or runaway.
  2. a vagabond or wanderer.
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Origin of runagate

1520–30; run (v.) + obsolete agate away; sense influenced by obsolete renegate (Middle English renegat < Medieval Latin renegātus renegade)
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

absconder, apostate, deserter, rat, recreant, renegade, runaway, sellout, tergiversator, turncoat, reneger

Examples from the Web for runagate

Historical Examples

  • The sight of Hamish at a carriage-door guided her to her runagate son.

    The Channings

    Mrs. Henry Wood

  • The wife of Cosimo d'Anguissola a runagate with her husband's cousin?

    The Strolling Saint

    Raphael Sabatini

  • The Syrian runagate: perhaps I'm writing for nothing in trusting my letter to him.

  • Osberne stood up and said: "What hast thou been about, runagate?"

    The Sundering Flood

    William Morris

  • "Nay, no runagate; he goes too slow ever to run," said Don Jordy.

    The White Plumes of Navarre

    Samuel Rutherford Crockett

British Dictionary definitions for runagate

runagate

noun
  1. archaic
    1. a vagabond, fugitive, or renegade
    2. (as modifier)a runagate priest
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Word Origin

C16: variant (influenced by run) of renegade
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012