root
/ɹut/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.41 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "This tree's roots can go as deep as twenty metres underground."
- "A Greek historian Phylarchus describes a white root indigenous to India that caused eunuchism when a person bathed in water in which the root was steeped."
- "A root caught Ulot's left foot and he almost fell."
- "[...] two fields which should have been sown with roots in the early summer were not sown because the ploughing had not been completed early enough."
- "Root damage is a common problem of overbrushing."
- "The root is the only part of the hair that is alive."
Etymology
PIE word *wréh₂ds From Middle English rote, root, roote (“the underground part of a plant”), from late Old English rōt, from Old Norse rót (“root”), from Proto-Germanic *wrōts (“root”), from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“root”); Doublet of wort, radish, and radix. Cognate with Scots ruit, rute (“root”), Danish rod (“root”), Faroese and Icelandic rót (“root”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish rot (“root”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹut/
- British English: /ɹuːt/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Medicine.