roost
/ɹust/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.00 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A bedroom.
noun
The open cross-joists or inner roof of a cottage or living space.
noun
A kick which causes the ball to travel a long distance.
noun
Synonym of perch (“a position that is secure and advantageous”).
Example Sentences
- "He clapp'd his wings upon his roost."
- "a roost of birds is merely a fortuitous aggregation of individuals that have strategically placed their roost site to minimize distance to their supplemental and main food sources"
- "A roost of chickens clucked excitedly in the undergrowth to the south of the Mata's enclosure, as a nocturnal snake hunted eggs"
- "The UPS package centre for central London, a brief walk from Kentish Town tube station, holds a below-ground bay in which 170 vans roost every night."
- "Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, for a glimpse, it would all disappear and then boil up again. What it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race, which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin."
Etymology
From Middle English roste (“chicken's roost; perch”), from Old English hrōst (“wooden framework of a roof; roost”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrōst, from Proto-Germanic *hrōstaz (“wooden framework; grill”); see *raustijan. Cognate with Dutch roest (“roost”), German Low German Rust (“roost”), German Rost (“grate; gridiron; grill”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: roste, hrōst, *hrōst, *hrōstaz
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹust/
- British English: /ɹuːst/