runagate

[ ruhn-uh-geyt ]

noun

1. a fugitive or runaway.
2. a vagabond or wanderer.

runagate

/ ˈrʌnəˌɡeɪt /

noun

1. archaic.
   1. a vagabond, fugitive, or renegade
   2. ( as modifier )

      a runagate priest

Word History and Origins

Origin of runagate¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of runagate¹

C16: variant (influenced by run ) of 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

In 1785, I found this runagate at Vienna.

From Project Gutenberg