roungev.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman rounger (also rogner , roigner , roiner , roinner , etc.: see below), Anglo-Norman and Middle French ronger, runger, Middle French rongier, rungier (Middle French, French ronger ) to gnaw (last quarter of the 12th cent. in Old French), to chew the cud (c1200), to devour (13th cent.), in Anglo-Norman also (of a horse) to champ (c1305 or earlier) < classical Latin rumigāre (probably) to chew the cud, ruminate (2nd cent. a.d. in Apuleius; < rūmen rumen n. (or perhaps < rumis teat, nipple: see rumule n.) + -igāre , verbal suffix also seen in -lītigāre litigate v.); this Latin form gave the continental Old French forms with medial -u- , but the word was probably influenced early on by the unattested French reflexes of an unattested post-classical Latin form *rodicare in sense ‘to gnaw’ ( < classical Latin rōdere to gnaw, to eat away, devour (see rodent adj. and n.) + -icāre , verbal suffix), whence the medieval French forms with medial -o- ; subsequently, both types of French forms broadened in meaning to cover both sense branches, ’to ruminate’ and ‘to gnaw, to devour’. In Anglo-Norman, the verb was apparently also associated or confused with the etymologically distinct etymon of royn v. (see discussion at that entry). With sense 3 compare earlier royn v. 1b and rounger n.