roost

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹuːst/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːst

Etymology 1

From Middle English roste (“chicken's roost; perch”), from Old English hrōst (“wooden framework of a roof; roost”), from Proto-Germanic *hrōstaz (“wooden framework; grill”); see *raustijaną.

Cognate with Dutch roest (“roost”), German Low German Rust (“roost”), German Rost (“grate; gridiron; grill”).

Noun

roost (plural roosts)

1. The place where a bird sleeps (usually its nest or a branch).
   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 228732415:

     He clapp'd his wings upon his roost.

2. A group of birds roosting together.
3. A bedroom
4. (Scotland) The inner roof of a cottage.

Derived terms

• rule the roost

Translations

place for sleeping birds

• Bikol Central: tugdunan
• Catalan: jóc (ca) m
• Czech: kurník (cs) m, hřad m
• Finnish: nukkumapaikka
• Galician: poleiro (gl) m
• German: Nest (de) n
• Greek:

  Ancient: πέτευρον n (péteuron)

• Italian: pollaio (it) m
• Japanese: 塒 (ja) (ねぐら, negura)
• Latvian: lakta (lv) f

• Maori: tūhunga
• Polish: grzęda (pl)
• Portuguese: poleiro (pt)
• Russian: насе́ст (ru) m (nasést)
• Scottish Gaelic: (branch or rod) spiris f
• Serbo-Croatian: кокошињац m, kokošinjac (sh) m
• Spanish: gallinero m, pajarera (es) f
• Walloon: djoke (wa) m, djocoe (wa) m

Verb

roost (third-person singular simple present roosts, present participle roosting, simple past and past participle roosted)

1. (intransitive, of birds or bats) To settle on a perch in order to sleep or rest
2. (figuratively) to spend the night
   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     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.

See also

• the chickens come home to roost

Translations

Translations

• Catalan: ajocar-se (ca)
• Finnish: nukkua (fi)
• German: auf einem Ast schlafen, auf einer Stange schlafen, übernachten (de)

• Italian: appollaiarsi (it)
• Japanese: 就塒する (しゅうじする, shūji suru)
• Turkish: tünemek (tr)

Etymology 2

From Old Norse róst

Noun

roost (plural roosts)

1. (Shetland and Orkney) A tidal race.
   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

     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 3

Verb

roost (third-person singular simple present roosts, present participle roosting, simple past and past participle roosted)

1. Alternative form of roust

Anagrams

• Sorto, Toors, ostro, roots, rotos, stoor, toros, torso

---

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish rúsc, from Proto-Celtic *ruskos (compare Welsh rhisgl).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ruːs/

Noun

roost m (genitive singular roost, plural roostyn)

1. peel, rind
2. bark

Derived terms

• neuroostit (“unbarked”)

Verb

roost (verbal noun roostey, past participle rooisht)

1. to strip, peel, hull, rind, unbark
2. to rob
3. to bare
4. to debunk
5. to rifle
6. to deprive

---

Middle English

Noun

roost

1. Alternative form of roste (“roast”)