ogre

Definition

A type of brutish giant from folk tales that eats human flesh.

Etymology

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.

Example Sentences

• "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[.]"
• "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[.]"
• "From his end of the hall Beowulf watched the ogre, weighed his endowment, and waited to see how Grendel would strike."