Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) a swaggering, blustering bully, a noisy reveller; thus roistering/roystering n. and adj.; roisterly adj.; roist v., to swagger; roister-doisterdom n.

1549		J. Cheke Hurt of Sedicion E4v: After warres it is communelye sene, that a great number of those whiche wente out honest, returne home againe like roisters.
1552		G. Walker Detection of Vyle and Detestable Use of Dice Play 35: A young roisterly gentleman desiring a maiden [...] resorted to a baud, and promised her good wages to provide him with a maid.
a.1553		N. Udall [play title] Ralph Roister Doister.
1566		G. Gascoigne (trans.) Supposes I ii: They swim in silk, when others roist in rags.
1568		U. Fulwell Like Will to Like 15: I know that roisters and tosspots come of one kind [...] And roisters and ruffians do sober company eschew.
1576		G. Gascoigne Steele Glas Cii: The roysters brag, aboue their betters rome.
1592		Harvey Foure letters III 45: I haue [...] seene the mad-braynest Roister-doister in a countrey, dashte out of countenaunce.
1593		Nashe Four Letters Confuted in Works II (1883–4) 274: Thy roister-doisterdome hath not dasht vs out of countenance.
1593		G. Harvey Pierce’s Supererogation 63: Euery ruffianly Copesmate, that hath bene a Gramar schollar, readeth riotous bookes, hanteeth roisterly companie, delighteth in rude scoffing.
1600		Tom Tel-troths Message 32: Wrath is the cause that maketh euery streete / A Shambles, and a bloodie butcherie, / Where roysting ruffins quarrell for their drabs.
1606		Return from Parnassus Pt II I ii: Me thinkes he is a Ruffian in his stile [...] He quaffes a cup of Frenchmans Helicon, Then royster doyster in his oylie tearmes, Cutts, thrusts, and foines at whomsoever he meets.
1610		Rowlands Martin Mark-all 16: After wars it is commonly seene that those that went out honest, returne home againe like Roysters.
1620		J. Taylor ‘Praise of Hemp-Seed’ Works (1869) III 73: The eight was blowne vp by a swearing Royster, / That would cut throats as soone as eate an Oyster.
1637		R. Brome Eng. Moor I iii: Outragious Roysters.
c.1654		‘Dead and Alive’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 387: There was a shaving royster as I heard many tell.
a.1661		‘Arsy versy’ in Rump Poems and Songs (1662) ii 50: He spent on the City, like one of the Roysters, / Each morning his two pence in Sack and in Oysters.
1675		C. Cotton Scoffer Scoff’d (1765) 254: The Roysters would not spoil his Face.
1687		T. Brown Saints in Uproar in Works (1760) I 74: How now, bully Royster.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Roysters, c. rude, Roaring Rogues.
1715		‘Nickydemus Ninnyhammer’ Homer in a nut-shell 32: Such Noise the Ocean, when turn’d Royster, / Makes.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 101: But goodman Royster! I’d have you know, / Tho’ you are Jove; I still am Juno!
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 506: Old actor’s sons, two bullying roysters.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Royster, a rude boisterous fellow; also a hound that opens on a false scent.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) II 184: This is beyond all bearing, screamed out the young royster with an overwhelming vehemence.
1815		T. Whittell ‘Valiant Edward Steel’ Poetical Works 138: A sort of shaving roysters did breed a strange debate, / But valiant Edward Steel [...] Did bang these boobies and these loobies, / Until he made them reel.
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 220: That screaming noisy royster, ould Mother Shiver-the-Mizen.
1828		Lytton Pelham II 125: He [...] sat himself down with a swagger, and called out, like a lusty royster of the true kidney, for a pint of purl and a pipe.
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth I 207: Give me a real roistering, rantum tearum sort of a fellow, who ain’t afraid of the devil, nor any other old woman.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 28: Roysters – noisy turbulent fellows, rude vile singers.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1849		Lopndon Standard 6 July Wright is simply victim of a party of roystering medical students: .
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.
1865		Kentish Gaz. 31 Jan. 2/3: Ginger was hot in the mouths of the roysterers. They belonged to the brotherhood of swells [...] The author writes such fast fellows down as ‘royster’ [...] and a ‘royster’, he adds, cannot do the office of a gentleman.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 30: ‘D—d unprincipled roysterers, they’.
1876		Western Mail 29 Dec. 3/4: Tho’ fools may vow / That ’tis to toy, blaspheme, or royster —.
1879		Dundee Courier 12 Aug. 4: The prisoners were two of a gang of roystering fellows, who were marching up and down the street annoying the inhabitants.
1883		E.J. Milliken Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage 44: Self-deemed a roysterer wild, / Juan and Alcibiades combined.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Oct. 7/1: Well, he has had a pretty fair turn at the cakes and ale, and should leave roystering and bumper-draining to the young fellows of 90.
1887		N. Devon Jrnl 2 June 3/2: Farewell, ye royster boys, whose pranks are o’er.
1897		Hampshire Teleg. 12 June 9/7: That roysering fellow, king Charles the Second, who was partial to kisses from the fair sex.
1897		London Dly News 23 Nov. 6/2: His mother will have nothing to do with a girl ‘tricked out in her furbelows, gallivantin’ wi’ every royster fra’ Pe’rith’.
1900		Sporting Times 14 Apr. 1/1: The ‘still, small voice’ so often written of is that in which the married roysterer on the doorstep returns the policeman’s ‘Good night, sir,’ at four in the morning.
1900		Sporting Times 26 May 2/4: Men off to some early work, going as quietly and quickly as men who have slept do go in the cold of the early morning, passing swiftly the lagging roisterers to whom time was now no object.
1906		Morpeth Herald 6 Jan. 7/3: There was also a remarkable absence of the usual hilarious roystering of bands of youth.
1910		Sporting Times 1 Jan. 4/1: The most dyspeptic roysterer pays as much as the human ostrich with a six-cylinder digestion. Everybody sups.