ogre

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   in folklore, a large and frightening humanoid monster that eats human beings, especially children

   In the old tale, an ogre guards the road through the forest.

2. 2
   noun

   a person regarded as cruel, brutal, or frightening

   The new supervisor seemed like an ogre until the team got to know him.

Borrowed from French ogre, the man-eating giant of fairy tales. The French word is generally connected, probably through Italian orco, with Latin Orcus, the underworld or its deity, though details of the path are disputed. French literary fairy tales helped establish the word in eighteenth-century English; the cruel-person sense is figurative.

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