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ogre

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Ogre

English

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WOTD – 11 April 2009
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Etymology

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First attested in the 18th century, borrowed from French ogre, from Latin Orcus (“god of the underworld”), from Ancient Greek Ὅρκος (Hórkos), the personified demon of oaths (ὅρκος (hórkos, “oath”)) who inflicts punishment upon oath-breakers. Doublet of orc and Orcus.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ogre (plural ogres)

  1. (mythology, folklore) A large, grotesque, brutish humanoid monster, typically marked by great strength and a propensity to kill or devour humans.
    • 1828, Thomas Keightley, Fairy Mythology, volume II, page 237:
      And in the seventh tale of the third day of the same collection, when Corvetto had hidden himself under the Ogre's bed to steal his quilt, "he began to pull quite gently, when the Ogre awoke, and bid his wife not to pull the clothes that way, or she'd strip him, and he would get his death of cold." "Why, it's you that are stripping me," replied the Ogress, "and you have not left a stitch on me." "Where the devil is the quilt?" says the Ogre[.]
    • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 350:
      If I came suddenly upon a well where women were drawing water or children bathing, a sudden flight was the certain result; which things occurring day after day, were very unpleasant to a person who does not like to be disliked, and who had never been accustomed to be treated as an ogre.
    • 1936, J. R. R. Tolkien, Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, published 1976, page 32:
      And the conquest of the ogres comes at the right moment: not in earliest youth, though the nicors are referred in Beowulf's geogoðfeore as a presage of the kind of hero we have to deal with[.]
    • 1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 29:
      From his end of the hall Beowulf watched the ogre, weighed his endowment, and waited to see how Grendel would strike.
  2. (figuratively) A cruel person.
    People are going to think I'm an ogre if I refuse to buy coffee for my little brother!

Derived terms

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Translations

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Anagrams

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French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French ogre, itself probably an alteration, with influence from words like bougre, of an earlier form *orc, from Latin Orcus (“the underworld; the god Pluto”), with metathesis. According to the Trésor de la langue française informatisé, first attested in the late 12th century meaning 'fierce non-Christian', and ca. 1300 meaning 'human-eating giant' (in fairy tales). Cognate with Old Spanish huerco (“the Devil”), Spanish huerco (“depressed man in the dark”), Italian orco (“ogre, orc”). Doublet of orque.

See also French lutin (“imp, pixie”), possibly from Old French netun (“marine monster”), derived from Latin Neptūnus, and also Old French gene (“mischievous fairy”) and Romanian zână (“fairy”), both inherited forms of Latin Diāna. A sermon by Merovingian French bishop St. Eligius (died 659) advises people against belief in Neptune, Diana, Orcus and Minerva.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ogre m (plural ogres, feminine ogresse)

  1. (mythology) ogre

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Asturian: ogru
  • → Catalan: ogre
  • → Dutch: oger
  • → English: ogre
  • → German: Oger
  • → Hungarian: ogre
  • → Japanese: オーガ (ōga)
  • → Korean: 오거 (ogeo)
  • → Malayalam: ഓഗർ (ōgaṟ)
  • → Polish: ogr
  • → Portuguese: ogro, ogre
  • → Spanish: ogro

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Portuguese

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Pronunciation

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  • Hyphenation: o‧gre

Noun

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ogre m (plural ogres, feminine ogra, feminine plural ogras)

  1. alternative form of ogro

Further reading

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