picaresque Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective satellite involving clever rogues or adventurers especially as in a type of fiction
    • picaresque novels
    • waifs of the picaresque tradition
    • a picaresque hero

WordNet

Pic`a*resque" adjective
Etymology
F., fr. Sp. picaro rogue.
Definitions
  1. Applied to that class of literature in which the principal personage is the Spanish picaro, meaning a rascal, a knave, a rogue, an adventurer.

Webster 1913