Literary notes about ROUE (AI summary)
The word "roue" appears in literature as a multifaceted term that primarily connotes debauchery and rakish behavior. It is often used to depict characters whose licentious and dissolute nature stands as a foil to more virtuous or respectable figures, as when a man is derisively called a “roue” to emphasize his moral decay [1, 2, 3]. In some narratives, the term even hints at an ironic transformation—implying that one might grow from a notorious libertine into a seemingly respectable figure [4]. Additionally, "roue" can take on playful connotations, doubling as slang for coinage or evoking the imagery of a turning wheel, thereby enriching its symbolic heft and adding layers of metaphorical meaning to literary works [5, 6].
- But he was a roue, and had nothing in common with this booby, who has a talent for painting as an elephant has a trunk—what irony!
— from Cosmopolis — Volume 2 by Paul Bourget - "Mark me, doctor, Dorothy will not put up an instant with a roue and a brute."
— from Richard Carvel — Volume 03 by Winston Churchill - The most abandoned roue could not, at that particular crisis, have taken such a reckless step for the mere pleasure of a new companion.’
— from Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy - I was not prepared to find you grown from a roue into a senator.
— from Pelham — Complete by Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron - Palet , m. (popular), un —— , une thune , or une roue de derrière , a five-franc piece .
— from Argot and Slang A New French and English Dictionary of the Cant Words, Quaint Expressions, Slang Terms and Flash Phrases Used in the High and Low Life of Old and New Paris by Albert Barrère - "Boys," he exclaimed, "'tis a hind wheel" ( une roue de derrière —the slang word for a silver dollar).
— from Trooper 3809: A Private Soldier of the Third Republic by Lionel Decle
