What's a Picaresque?

“Picaresque” is an eely tag. The Spanish word picaresca came from picaro, first used in the early 1600s and which in English can mean rogue, bohemian, adventurer, rapscallion. We took picaron, the augmentative of picaro, and made the accusatory-sounding “picaroon,” a lovely synonym for “picaro” that Merriam-Webster will tell you also means “pirate,” although Picaroons of the Caribbean doesn’t have the ring it should. The picaresque novel—the term wasn’t coined in English until the early nineteenth century—has shape-shifted since its first known incarnation in Spain, the anonymously authored Lazarillo de Tormes, published in 1553. But most picaresque novels incorporate several defining characteristics: satire, comedy, sarcasm, acerbic social criticism; first-person narration with an autobiographical ease of telling; an outsider protagonist-seeker on an episodic and often pointless quest for renewal or justice. 

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/53090-what-s-a-picaresque-the-top-5-novels.html