room
/ɹum/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.39 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Thou lorde whiche knowest the hertes of all men, shewe whether thou hast chosen of these two, that the one maye take the roume of this ministracion, and apostleshippe from the which Judas by transgression fell, that he myght goo to his awne place."
- "Nor shalt thou give me room to doubt whether it be necessity or love, that inspires this condescending impulse."
- "He explains they have enough room to stand and lie down, points out the "little cup to brush our teeth", and the place where they pray."
- "If he have but twelve pence in his purse, he will give it for the best room in a playhouse."
- "When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room."
- "There was no prince in the empire who had room for such an alliance."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *Hrew-? Proto-Indo-European *(H)rewH-der. Proto-Germanic *rūmą Proto-West Germanic *rūm Old English rūm Middle English roum English room From Middle English roum (“room, space”), from Old English rūm (“room, space”), from Proto-West Germanic *rūm (“room”), from Proto-Germanic *rūmą (“room”), from Proto-Indo-European *(H)rewH- (“to root; to rip, tear”), from *Hrew- (“to tear out, open”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian rüm (“room, space”), Saterland Frisian and Low German Ruum (“room, space”), Dutch ruim (“open space; cargo hold”), German and Luxembourgish Raum (“room, space”), Vilamovian raojm (“room”), Danish and Swedish rum (“room, space”), Faroese and Icelandic rúm (“space, room”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk rom (“room, space”), Gothic 𐍂𐌿𐌼 (rum, “room, space”); also Irish rúsc (“bark”), Manx roost (“bark; peel, rind”), Scottish Gaelic rùsg (“rind; bark; fleece; shell”), Welsh rhisgl (“bark”), Latin rūs (“country, fields, lands; estate, farm; village”), Ancient Greek ὀρύσσω (orússō), ὀρύττω (orúttō, “to dig”), Latvian raut (“to pull with force”), Lithuanian rauti (“to grub, pull”), Belarusian рыць (rycʹ, “to dig”), Bulgarian ри́я (ríja, “to excavate”), Czech rýt (“to dig; to engrave”), Polish ryć (“to dig”), Russian рыть (rytʹ, “to dig; to burrow, mine”), Slovak ryť (“to dig; to engrave”), Slovene riti (“to dig”), Ukrainian ри́ти (rýty, “to dig, excavate”), Central Kurdish ڕێو (rêw, “public hair”), Tocharian A kärpi (“raw, rough; common”), Tocharian B kärpiye (“raw, rough; common”), Sanskrit लोमन् (loman), रोमन् (roman, “body hair; down, wool”). More at rural. Doublet of Raum, a surname from German. The word superficially appears to be an exception to the Great Vowel Shift, which might have produced the pronunciation /ɹaʊm/, but the retention of Middle English /uː/ before /m/ is regular. In fact, /aʊ/ does not occur before non-coronal consonants in Standard Modern English native vocabulary. Some dialects did undergo diphthongization in such a position and the pronunciation /ɹaʊm/ occurs, for example, in Lancashire.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹum/
- British English: /ɹʊm/
Usage
Inflected Forms
rooms (plural)
roome (alternative, obsolete)
rooms (present, singular)
rooming (participle, present)
roomed (participle, past)
roomed (past)
more room (comparative)
most room (superlative)
Derived Forms
Phrases
Frequently Paired Words
clean my room
elbow room
elephant in the room
get a room
in the room
need a room
no room at the inn
room and board
Synonyms
Homonyms
rheum (/ɹu(ː)m/, /ɹʉm/)
rum (/ɹʊm/) (without the foot-strut split)