roister

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The Word of the Day for June 14 is:

roister   \ROY-ster\   verb
     : to engage in noisy revelry : carouse 

Example sentence:
     Hugh didn't get much sleep last night because his neighbors were 
roistering until the wee hours of the morning.

Did you know? 
     As Hugo Williams asserts in _The Times Literary Supplement_ (November 15, 
1991), roistering tends to be "funnier, sillier and less harmful than standard 
hooliganism, being based on nonsense rather than violence." Roisterers might be 
chagrined to learn that the word "roister" derives from a Middle French word 
that means "lout" or "boor" ("rustre"). Ultimately, however, it is from the 
fairly neutral Latin word "rusticus," meaning "rural." In the 16th century, the 
original English verb was simply "roist," and one who roisted was a "roister." 
Later, we changed the verb to "roister" and the corresponding noun to 
"roisterer."





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