Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A giant or monster in legends and fairy tales that eats humans.
  • noun A person who is felt to be particularly cruel, brutish, or hideous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In fairy tales and popular legend, a giant or hideous monster of malignant disposition, supposed to live on human flesh; hence, one likened to or supposed to resemble such a monster.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An imaginary monster, or hideous giant of fairy tales, who lived on human beings; hence, any frightful giant; a cruel monster.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mythology A type of brutish giant from folk tales that eats human flesh.
  • noun figuratively A brutish man whose behavior resembles that of the mythical ogre.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (folklore) a giant who likes to eat human beings
  • noun a cruel wicked and inhuman person

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, probably ultimately from Latin Orcus, god of the underworld.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

First attested in the 18th century, from French ogre, from Latin Orcus ("god of the underworld"), from Ancient Greek Όρκος (Horkos), the personified demon of oaths (ὅρκος ("oath")) who inflicts punishment upon perjurers.

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Examples

  • Defense of that contemptible ogre is the very farthest thing from my mind.

    Think Progress » FEMA Abruptly Abandons Long-Term Recovery Office In New Orleans 2006

  • 'I laugh because the ogre is killed!' she replied, 'and because the prince who killed it is sleeping in my house.'

    Tales of the Punjab 1894

  • So he called the ogre and asked her of him for his wife; but the ogre said it was not his affair, for he had learned that very morning that Violet was the daughter of Cola Aniello.

    Pentamerone. English Giambattista Basile 1603

  • They both seemed to have an "ogre" - whelmingly good time!

    Wendy Diamond: Howl-oween Pet Costume Party Full of Canine Celebrities 2009

  • Kafka envisioned a man transformed into a gigantic insect; Homer described the plight of men transformed into pigs; in Shrek 2 an ogre is transformed into a human being, and a donkey into a steed; in Star Trek a scheming villain forcibly occupies Captain Kirk's body so as to take command of the Enterprise; in The Tale of the Body Thief, Anne Rice tells of a vampire and a human being who agree to trade bodies for a day; and in 13 Going on 30 a teenager wakes up as thirty-year-old Jennifer Garner.

    Is God an Accident? 2005

  • Kafka envisioned a man transformed into a gigantic insect; Homer described the plight of men transformed into pigs; in Shrek 2 an ogre is transformed into a human being, and a donkey into a steed; in Star Trek a scheming villain forcibly occupies Captain Kirk's body so as to take command of the Enterprise; in The Tale of the Body Thief, Anne Rice tells of a vampire and a human being who agree to trade bodies for a day; and in 13 Going on 30 a teenager wakes up as thirty-year-old Jennifer Garner.

    Is God an Accident? 2005

  • It is also rather silly to insist that the ogre was a dolt: his IQ was measured by his captors at 138, which means that he had greater analytical abilities than... well, probably most leading democratic politicians.

    Confession of a Broken Planner, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • The ogre was the most monstrous thing the Solamnic warrior had ever come across.

    The Reign of Istar Weis, Margaret 1992

  • He explained that the ogre was a vegetarian, so would not crunch our bones.

    Question Quest Anthony, Piers 1991

  • He explained that the ogre was a vegetarian, so would not crunch our bones.

    Question Quest Anthony, Piers 1991

Comments

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  • Ogre is a city in central Latvia.

    January 1, 2008

  • That's what he would like you to believe, right up until the moment that he scoops you into his mouth, tasty morsel that you are.

    January 1, 2008

  • Ha ha. And his little ogles get the leftovers.

    January 1, 2008