AbstractIn this paper, general rogue wave solutions in the massive Thirring (MT) model are derived by using the Kadomtsev–Petviashvili (KP) hierarchy reduction method and these rational solutions are presented explicitly in terms of determinants whose matrix elements are elementary Schur polynomials. In the reduction process, three reduction conditions including one index‐ and two dimension‐ones are proved to be consistent by only one constraint relation on parameters of tau‐functions of the KP‐Toda hierarchy. It is found that the rogue wave solutions in the MT model depend on two background parameters, which influence their orientation and duration. Differing from many other coupled integrable systems, the MT model only admits the rogue waves of bright‐type, and the higher order rogue waves represent the superposition of fundamental ones in which the nonreducible parameters determine the arrangement patterns of fundamental rogue waves. Particularly, the super rogue wave at each order can be achieved simply by setting all internal parameters to be zero, resulting in the amplitude of the sole huge peak of order N being times the background. Finally, rogue wave patterns are discussed when one of the internal parameters is large. Similar to other integrable equations, the patterns are shown to be associated with the root structures of the Yablonskii–Vorob'ev polynomial hierarchy through a linear transformation.