go rogue

phrase

: to begin to behave in an independent or uncontrolled way that is not authorized, normal, or expected

… Clark [a bald eagle] was supposed to fly around the stadium, high above people's heads. But instead, he went rogue and decided to perch on two unsuspecting fans.

—Nicole Gallucci

Anders had been sent to the Amazon to monitor the program's progress under the formidable Dr. Annick Swensen (who may have gone rogue and is no longer returning the company's calls).

—Yvonne Zipp

Whenever a member of a group goes rogue, you can be absolutely certain that other members of that group will pop up with the "bad apple" defense, as in, "Well, sure, there's a few bad apples in every bunch, but that's the exception."

—Christine Flowers

Examples of go rogue in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Con, where the company is to demonstrate how its offerings are protecting businesses from agents going rogue, like the situation where an OpenAI model hacked into a company looking for answers on how to solve a problem in the test environment. — Paulina Likos, CNBC, 27 Aug. 2026

This is powerful stuff and there needs to be a coordinated rollout specific to entire teams where everyone gets trained and then together use these applications consistently, rather than going rogue. — Gene Marks, Forbes.com, 23 Aug. 2026

Put simply, Hanke sees Venezuela’s future as the world’s leading oil maverick that will go rogue if OPEC’s strictures prevent it from maximizing the worth of its sumptuous reserves. — Shawn Tully, Fortune, 20 Aug. 2026

Almost a month after announcing that its models had gone rogue by hacking the AI platform Hugging Face, OpenAI is updating its public security policies with new rules designed to prevent future incidents. — James Peckham, PC Magazine, 19 Aug. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1905, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for go rogue

• prorogue
• bogue
• brogue
• drogue
• vogue