picaresqueadj/pɪkəˈɹɛsk/

• 1

  Of or pertaining to adventurers or rogues.

  • The blue and white of the Murano background and the frankly picaresque tramp seem to form strange bed-fellows for the supper-party below stairs into which any gentleman's gentleman of the siècle de Dr. [Samuel] Johnson might have walked at any moment. [Describing an adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters (1746).]
• 2

  literaturemediapublishingCharacteristic of a genre of Spanish satiric novel dealing with the adventures of a roguish hero.

  • A mere piece of roguery told in the abstract, without the proper picaresque ornaments, its manifold sinuosities and dexterities, has no interest for the reader; it may recommend the executor of it to the administration of a cat-o-nine-tails, or to an honourable post in the gallies: but there is no music in it without the proper accompaniments.
  • Spain became celebrated about the end of this century for her novels in the picaresque style, of which Lazarillo de Tormes is the oldest extant specimen.

picaresquenoun/pɪkəˈɹɛsk/

• 1

  literaturemediapublishingA picaresque novel.

  • Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas [From the sublime to the ridiculous there is only one step]; and that step in Spain was taken by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (already dealt with in his higher walk), the originator of the Picaresque, or low rogue's march novels, of which his Lazarillo de Tormes was the type— [...]
  • [T]he word picaro, which is almost synonymous with rogue, [...] has given a name to a whole series of novels in Spain called "Picaresques," the heroes of which are adventurers.