root
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
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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 and Swedish rot (“root”).
Inflected forms:
form: roots
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: roots
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: rooting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: rooted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: rooted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
gloss: A root vegetable.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: [...] 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.
gloss: The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Root damage is a common problem of overbrushing.
gloss: The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The root is the only part of the hair that is alive.
gloss: The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: He dyed his hair black last month, so the grey roots can be seen.
gloss: The primary source; origin.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: The love of money is the root of all evil.
They were the roots out of which sprang two distinct people.
Phallicism was, therefore, at the root of all religion, and was definitely the opponent of evil and darkness.
gloss: The section of a wing immediately adjacent to the fuselage.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The bottom of the thread of a threaded object.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The root diameter is the minor diameter of an external thread and the major diameter of an internal one.
gloss: Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The cube root of 27 is 3.
gloss: A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, "the root of" is often abbreviated to "root").
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: Multiply by root 2.
1899, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (transl.), The New Life (La Vita Nuova) of Dante Alighieri, Siddall edition, page 122.
The number three is the root of the number nine; […] being multiplied merely by itself, it produceth nine, as we manifestly perceive that three times three are nine.
gloss: A zero (of an equation).
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The single node of a tree that has no parent.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: In ſo moche that if any verbe be of the thyꝛde coniugation / I ſet out all his rotes and tenſes[…]
A considerable number of derived nominals, especially thematic nouns, also exhibited o-grade roots.
gloss: A word from which another word or words are derived.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: The lowest place, position, or part.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: deep to the roots of hell
the roots of the mountains
gloss: In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I have to log in as root before I do that.
gloss: The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I installed the files in the root directory.
gloss: A penis, especially the base of a penis.
pos: noun
tags: countable
slang
uncountable
gloss: To grow roots; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
pos: verb
examples: The cuttings are starting to root.
In deep grounds the weeds root the deeper.
Some old, underfired clay pantiles might be damaged by button mosses rooting in cracks and fissures. But most post-war tiles are hard enough to withstand a bit of moss growth.
gloss: To prepare, oversee, or otherwise cause the rooting of cuttings.
pos: verb
examples: We rooted some cuttings last summer.
gloss: To fix firmly; to establish.
pos: verb
examples: If any irregularity chanced to intervene and to cause misapprehensions, he gave them not leave to root and fasten by concealment.
Small theater companies come and go very quickly — many times after one show — but community response to Triangle has been strong, and there is a good chance that they will make it through those early growing stages and firmly root.
Massacres that take place during war often seem to be rooted in irrational emotion.
gloss: To get root or privileged access on (a computer system or mobile phone), often through bypassing some security mechanism.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: We rooted his box and planted a virus on it.
I want to root my Android phone so I can remove the preinstalled crapware.
Related words: successor
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Translations: