runagate

American  

[ruhn-uh-geyt] / ˈrʌn əˌgeɪt /

noun

1. a fugitive or runaway.

2. a vagabond or wanderer.

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runagate British  

/ ˈrʌnəˌɡeɪt /

noun

1. archaic

   1. a vagabond, fugitive, or renegade

   2. ( as modifier )

      a runagate priest

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Etymology

Origin of runagate

1520–30; run (v.) + obsolete agate away; sense influenced by obsolete renegate ( Middle English renegat < Medieval Latin renegātus renegade )

Example Sentences

Bettina Scott, who lives with her odd, controlling mother, is at the center of a number of family mysteries in her village of Runagate, a place where you’ll find “roses planted in wire-fenced gardens on the buried corpses of roadside kangaroos.”

From New York Times

His great-great-great-grandfather Scipio, a runaway slave, intended to escape from Kentucky alone but wound up trying to help another runagate, a pregnant woman named Abby, cross the Ohio River.

From The New Yorker

The last work on the program was also the most impressive: “Runagate, Runagate,” by Wendell Logan, sets Robert Hayden’s flamboyant poem about a runaway slave to music of wild ferocity, sobriety, eeriness and mordant wit.

From New York Times

"Well, I must say Marmaduke might have remembered that he had other relatives besides that runagate son," grumbled the squire.

From Project Gutenberg

The room, stiflingly close, lay in semi-darkness; on the bed sprawled the young runagate, dead asleep, his arms tossed wide.

From Project Gutenberg