roger

Formsrogers, rogering, rogered

Pluralrogers

1. 1
   confirm a messageinterjection

   Used over the radio to confirm that a message has come through and been understood.

   “Tower, Cessna four-five-two, roger, climbing to three thousand feet.”

   When the dispatcher read out the new address, the officer keyed her radio and said, “Roger, en route.”

   Note

   The word began as a letter: around 1940, UK and US military radio used Roger for R when spelling out words, and R stood for received. By 1950 it was spoken in air traffic radio, where a pilot quoted in Flying Magazine (May 1950) signs off "ROGER—OUT." Strictly, it says only that a message arrived and was understood, not that the speaker will act on it.

2. 2
   confirm a messageverbtransitive

   To acknowledge something, especially a radio message, by answering “roger.”

   The co-pilot rogered the clearance and read back the new altitude.

   Ground crews must roger every change to the landing schedule before acting on it.

   Similaracknowledge

   Note

   Here the procedure word becomes a verb with a message for its object: a co-pilot rogers a clearance, and in Charles Ryan's Phoenix Strike (2011) a radio operator rogers receipt of a signal. Care is needed with the forms, because rogered and rogering are also vulgar British slang; away from a cockpit or radio room, especially for British readers, the verb can land as an unintended joke.

3. 3
   have sexverbslangvulgarUKtransitive

   Of a man, to have sexual intercourse with someone, typically with an implication of roughness.

   In the old farce, the vicar walks in just as the squire is rogering the cook in the pantry.

   After three pints he would boast that he could still roger anyone in the village.

   Similarshag, screw, bonk

   Note

   Bawdy British slang with a separate history from the radio word: it may come, through the travelers' language Shelta, from the Old High German name Hrotger. It casts a man as the active partner and is crude rather than clinical, so it belongs to farce and rough talk, never to polite company or a serious account of sex.

4. 4
   have sexverbslangvulgarUKintransitive

   To have sexual intercourse.

   The guesthouse walls were so thin that the whole floor heard the couple in room six rogering until dawn.

   Honestly, those two do nothing but roger and eat takeaways all weekend.

   Similarshag, bonk, screw

   Note

   The intransitive verb names the act itself rather than something one person does to another, so it loses the man-as-actor restriction of the transitive use: a couple can be rogering, and so can either partner. The register does not soften with the grammar; it stays vulgar and British, fit only for comic or crude talk.

5. 5
   sex actnounslangvulgarUKcountable

   An act of sexual intercourse.

   He winked and said he was off home for a quick roger before the match.

   Between the kids and the night shifts, a roger is a rare event in our house these days.

   Similarshag, bonk, screw

   Note

   The noun treats a coarse act like an appointment: in I'm Alan Partridge (2002), Alan complains about having to put back his roger with Sonja one more time. One has a roger with someone, or postpones it, and that bookkeeping tone is usually the joke; the word is every bit as vulgar as the verb.

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