Emily Dickinson Lexicon

ROOK, v.t.

To cheat; to defraud by cheating. – Aubrey.

ROOK'ED, pp.

Cheated; defrauded.

ROOK'ER-Y, n.

1. A nursery of rooks. – Pope.
2. In low language, a brothel.

ROOK'ING, ppr.

Cheating.

ROOK'Y, a.

Inhabited by rooks; as, the rooky wood. – Shak.

ROOM, n. [Sax. rum; Dan. and Sw. rum; D. ruim; G. raum; Goth. rumis, room, place; Ir. rum, a floor or room; G. räumen, Sax. rumian, ryman, to give place, to amplify, to enlarge; Sax. rum-gifa, liberal. It may be allied to roam, ramble. Class Rm, No. 4, 9.]

1. Space; compass; extent of place, great or small. Let the words occupy as little room as possible.
2. Space or place unoccupied. Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. – Luke xiv.
3. Place for reception or admission of any thing. In this case there is no room for doubt or for argument.
4. Place of another; stead; as in succession or substitution. One magistrate or king comes in the room of a former one. We often place one thing in the room of another. – 1 Kings xx.
5. Unoccupied opportunity. The eager pursuit of wealth leaves little room for serious reflection.
6. An apartment in a house; any division separated from the rest by a partition; as a parlor, a drawing-room or bed-room; also, an apartment in a ship, as the cook-room, bread room, gun-room, &c.
7. A seat. – Luke xiv. To make room, to open a way or passage; to free from obstructions. To make room, to open a space or place for any thing. To give room, to withdraw; to leave space unoccupied for others to pass or to be seated.

ROOM, v.i.

To occupy an apartment; to lodge; an academic use of the word. A. B. rooms at No. 7.

ROOM'AGE, n. [from room.]

Space; place. [Not used.] – Wotton.

ROOM'FUL, a.

Abounding with rooms. – Donne.

ROOM'I-LY, adv.

Spaciously.

ROOM'I-NESS, n.

Space; spaciousness; large extent of space.

ROOMTH, n. [or ROOMTHY, a.]

Space, and spacious, are ill formed words and not used in the United States.

ROOM'Y, a.

Spacious; wide; large; having ample room; as, a roomy mansion; a roomy deck. – Dryden.

ROOP, n.

Hoarseness. [Little used.]

ROOST, n. [Sax. hrost; D. roest, roost; roesten, to roost.]

The pole or other support on which fowls rest at night. He clapp'd his wings upon his roost. – Dryden. At roost, in a state for rest and sleep.

ROOST, v.i.

1. To sit, rest or sleep, as fowls on a pole, tree or other thing at night.
2. To lodge, in burlesque.

ROOST'ER, n.

The male of the domestic fowl; the head of the roost.

ROOST'ING, ppr.

Sitting for rest and sleep at night.

ROOT, n. [Dan. rod; Sw. rot; L. radix; It. radice; Sp. raiz; Ir. raidis; W. rhaiz, a ray or spear, whence gwraiz, a root. A root is a shoot, and only a different application of rod, L. radius.]

1. That part of a plant which enters and fixes itself in the earth, and serves to support the plant in an erect position, while by means of its radicles, it imbibes nutriment for the stem, branches and fruit. There are six distinct organs which are capable of entering into the composition of a root, viz. the radicle, the fibril, the soboles, the bulb, the tuber, and the rhizoma.
2. The part of any thing that resembles the roots of a plant in manner of growth; as, the roots of a cancer, of teeth, &c.
3. The bottom or lower part of any thing. Deep to the roots of hell. – Milton. Burnet uses root of a mountain, but we now say base, foot or bottom. See Job xxviii. 9.
4. A plant whose root is esculent or the most useful part; as beets, carrots, &c.
5. The original or cause of any thing. The love of money is the root of all evil. – 1 Tim. vi.
6. The first ancestor. They were the roots out of which sprung two distinct people. – Locke.
7. In arithmetic and algebra, the root of any quantity is such a quantity as, when multiplied into itself a certain number of times, will exactly produce that quantity. Thus 2 is a root of 4, because when multiplied into itself, it exactly produces 4.
8. Means of growth. “He hath no root in himself;” that is, no soil in which grace can grow and flourish. – Matth. xiii.
9. In music, the fundamental note of any chord. – Busby. Root of bitterness, in Scripture, any error, sin or evil that produces discord or immorality. To take root, to become planted or fixed; or to be established; to increase and spread. To take deep root, to be firmly planted or established; to be deeply impressed. – Dryden.

ROOT, v.i.¹

1. To fix the root; to enter the earth, as roots. In deep grounds, the weeds root deeper. – Mortimer.
2. To be firmly fixed; to be established. The multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not take deep rooting. – Wisdom.
3. To sink deep. If any error chanced … to cause misapprehensions, he gave them not leave to root and fasten by a concealment. – Fell.

ROOT, v.i.² [or v. t. Sax. wrot, a snout or proboscis; wrotan, to dig or root; D. wroeten, G. reuten, Dan. roder, Sw. rota, to root. This seems to be of the same family as the former word and rod, from the use of the snout.]

To turn up the earth with the snout, as swine. Swine root to find worms; they root the ground wherever they come. To root up or out, to eradicate; to extirpate; to remove or destroy root and branch; to exterminate. – Deut. xxix. Job xxxi.

ROOT, v.t.

1. To plant and fix deep in the earth; used chiefly in the participle; as, rooted trees or forests. – Dryden.
2. To plant deeply; to impress deeply and durably. Let the leading truths of the Gospel be rooted in the mind; let holy affections be well rooted in the heart.
3. In Scripture, to be rooted and grounded in Christ, is to be firmly united to him by faith and love, and well established in the belief of his character and doctrines. – Eph. iii.

ROOT'-BOUND, a.

Fixed to the earth by roots. – Milton.

ROOT'-BUILT, a.

Built of roots. – Shenstone.

ROOT-EAT-ER, n.

An animal that feeds on roots. – Kirby.