Renegade

Although renegade derives from renege , meaning “to renounce,” both terms originate in Latin negare , “to deny.” From their earliest usage in the sixteenth century they denoted betrayal or abandonment of previous loyalties to a cause. Renegade , dating from about 1583, is the anglicized form of renegado , and was the more critical term, originally meaning “an apostate from any religion, especially a Christian who becomes a Mohammedan.” “He was a renegado,” wrote Richard Hakluyt in 1599, “which is one that first was a Christian, and afterward becommeth a Turke” ( Voiages and Discoueries of the English Nation , II i, 186). This gives a clue to the origin of the phrase “to turn Turk.” About a century later the word was being used of a traitor or turncoat generally, one who deserts a person, party, or principle. The related term runagate is an anglicization meaning “vagabond, fugitive, or renegade.” The verb renege originally covered most of the same serious meanings, but has since acquired the comparatively trivial sense of not following suit in cards, also known, interestingly, as renouncing or revoking , condemned by The Complete Gamester (1680) as “very foul play” (x, 82).