Definitions for ROOT
rut, rʊtROOT

Princeton's WordNet(4.25 / 8 votes)Rate this definition:

1. root(noun)

   (botany) the usually underground organ that lacks buds or leaves or nodes; absorbs water and mineral salts; usually it anchors the plant to the ground

2. beginning, origin, root, rootage, source(noun)

   the place where something begins, where it springs into being

   "the Italian beginning of the Renaissance"; "Jupiter was the origin of the radiation"; "Pittsburgh is the source of the Ohio River"; "communism's Russian root"

3. root, root word, base, stem, theme, radical(noun)

   (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed

   "thematic vowels are part of the stem"

4. root(noun)

   a number that, when multiplied by itself some number of times, equals a given number

5. solution, root(noun)

   the set of values that give a true statement when substituted into an equation

6. ancestor, ascendant, ascendent, antecedent, root(noun)

   someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)

7. etymon, root(noun)

   a simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes

8. root, tooth root(verb)

   the part of a tooth that is embedded in the jaw and serves as support

9. root(verb)

   take root and begin to grow

   "this plant roots quickly"

10. root(verb)

    come into existence, originate

    "The problem roots in her depression"

11. root(verb)

    plant by the roots

12. rout, root, rootle(verb)

    dig with the snout

    "the pig was rooting for truffles"

13. settle, root, take root, steady down, settle down(verb)

    become settled or established and stable in one's residence or life style

    "He finally settled down"

14. root(verb)

    cause to take roots

Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Root(verb)

   to turn up the earth with the snout, as swine

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

2. Root(verb)

   hence, to seek for favor or advancement by low arts or groveling servility; to fawn servilely

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

3. Root(verb)

   to turn up or to dig out with the snout; as, the swine roots the earth

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

4. Root(noun)

   the underground portion of a plant, whether a true root or a tuber, a bulb or rootstock, as in the potato, the onion, or the sweet flag

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

5. Root(noun)

   the descending, and commonly branching, axis of a plant, increasing in length by growth at its extremity only, not divided into joints, leafless and without buds, and having for its offices to fix the plant in the earth, to supply it with moisture and soluble matters, and sometimes to serve as a reservoir of nutriment for future growth. A true root, however, may never reach the ground, but may be attached to a wall, etc., as in the ivy, or may hang loosely in the air, as in some epiphytic orchids

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

6. Root(noun)

   an edible or esculent root, especially of such plants as produce a single root, as the beet, carrot, etc.; as, the root crop

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

7. Root(noun)

   that which resembles a root in position or function, esp. as a source of nourishment or support; that from which anything proceeds as if by growth or development; as, the root of a tooth, a nail, a cancer, and the like

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

8. Root(noun)

   an ancestor or progenitor; and hence, an early race; a stem

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

9. Root(noun)

   a primitive form of speech; one of the earliest terms employed in language; a word from which other words are formed; a radix, or radical

   Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

10. Root(noun)

    the cause or occasion by which anything is brought about; the source

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

11. Root(noun)

    that factor of a quantity which when multiplied into itself will produce that quantity; thus, 3 is a root of 9, because 3 multiplied into itself produces 9; 3 is the cube root of 27

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

12. Root(noun)

    the fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

13. Root(noun)

    the lowest place, position, or part

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

14. Root(noun)

    the time which to reckon in making calculations

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

15. Root(verb)

    to fix the root; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

16. Root(verb)

    to be firmly fixed; to be established

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

17. Root(verb)

    to plant and fix deeply in the earth, or as in the earth; to implant firmly; hence, to make deep or radical; to establish; -- used chiefly in the participle; as, rooted trees or forests; rooted dislike

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

18. Root(verb)

    to tear up by the root; to eradicate; to extirpate; -- with up, out, or away

    Etymology: [Icel. rt (for vrt); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Root

   The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of root morphemes. However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe the word minus its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, chatters has the inflectional root or lemma chatter, but the lexical root chat. Inflectional roots are often called stems, and a root in the stricter sense may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem. The traditional definition allows roots to be either free morphemes or bound morphemes. Root morphemes are essential for affixation and compounds. However, in polysynthetic languages with very high levels of inflectional morphology, the term "root" is generally synonymous with "free morpheme". Many such languages have a very restricted number of morphemes that can stand alone as a word: Yup'ik, for instance, has no more than two thousand. The root of a word is a unit of meaning and, as such, it is an abstraction, though it can usually be represented in writing as a word would be. For example, it can be said that the root of the English verb form running is run, or the root of the Spanish superlative adjective amplísimo is ampl-, since those words are clearly derived from the root forms by simple suffixes that do not alter the roots in any way. In particular, English has very little inflection, and hence a tendency to have words that are identical to their roots. But more complicated inflection, as well as other processes, can obscure the root; for example, the root of mice is mouse, and the root of interrupt is, arguably, rupt, which is not a word in English and only appears in derivational forms. The root rupt is written as if it were a word, but it's not.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Root

   rōōt, n. the part of a plant which is fixed in the earth, and which draws up sap from the soil: an edible root: anything like a root, a growing plant together with its root: the bottom: a word from which others are derived: the cause, occasion, or basis of anything: the source: the lowest place: the first ancestor, or progenitor: (math.) the factor of a quantity which multiplied by itself produces that quantity: any value of the unknown quantity in an equation which will render both sides of it identical.—v.i. to fix the root: to be firmly established: to tear up: to eradicate: to exterminate.—v.t. to plant in the earth: to implant deeply.—ns. Root′age, the act of striking roots; Root′-beer, a drink made from roots of dandelion, sassafras, &c.; Root′-bōr′er, an insect which bores the roots of plants.—adj. Root′-bound (Milt.), fixed in the earth by, or as by, the root.—ns. Root′-cap, a cap-like layer of cells at the tip of roots; Root′-crop, a crop of esculent roots, esp. of single-rooted plants, as turnips, &c.; Root′-dig′ger, a form of tongs for raising carrots, &c.; Root′-eat′er, any animal feeding habitually on roots.—adj. Root′ed, firmly planted: fixed by the roots: deep-seated, as a rooted dislike.—adv. Root′edly.—ns. Root′edness; Root′er.—adj. Root′-fast, firmly rooted.—ns. Root′-fī′bril, one of the fine divisions of a root; Root′-form, a form assumed by an insect when feeding on roots; Root′-graft′ing, the process of grafting scions on a part of the root of some appropriate stock; Root′-hair, a delicate filament developed from a single cell.—adj. Root′-head′ed, fixed as if rooted by the head.—ns. Root′-house, a rustic-house: a storehouse for potatoes, &c.; Root′-knot, an abnormal knot of a root.—adj. Root′less, destitute of roots.—ns. Root′let, a little root: a radicle; Root′-louse, one of the plant-lice; Root′-par′asite, a plant which grows upon, and derives its nourishment from, the root of another plant; Root′-pres′sure, an upward flow of sap, 'bleeding;' Root′-pulp′er, a mill for grinding roots; Root′-sheath, the sheath of the root of a hair or feather; Root′-stock (bot.), a prostrate rooting stem, either fleshy or woody, which yearly produces young branches or plants: origin.—adj. Root′y, abounding in roots: rank.—Root and branch, completely; Root of bitterness, a dangerous error drawing away to apostasy; Root of the matter, that which is essential.—Strike, or Take, root, to root, to become fixed. [Scand.; Ice. rót; Dan. rod; Goth. waurts, A.S. wyrt.]

2. Root

   rōōt, v.t. to turn up with the snout.—v.i. to turn up the earth with the snout.—n. Root′er.—v.t. Root′le. [A.S. wrótan—wrót, a snout.]

The New Hacker's Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. root

   1. [Unix] The superuser account (with user name ‘root’) that ignores permission bits, user number 0 on a Unix system. The term avatar is also used. 2. The top node of the system directory structure; historically the home directory of the root user, but probably named after the root of an (inverted) tree. 3. By extension, the privileged system-maintenance login on any OS. See root mode, go root, see also wheel.

Editors Contribution(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. root

   A element of a cultivar, plant, shrub, bush, hedge, vine or tree.

   The roots are a vital part of the tree, shrubs, vine, hedges etc.

   Submitted by MaryC on February 27, 2020  

Suggested Resources(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. root

   The root symbol -- In this Symbols.com article you will learn about the meaning of the root symbol and its characteristic.

2. root

   Song lyrics by root -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by root on the Lyrics.com website.

3. ROOT

   What does ROOT stand for? -- Explore the various meanings for the ROOT acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'ROOT' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #4756

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'ROOT' in Written Corpus Frequency: #2420

3. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'ROOT' in Nouns Frequency: #1006

4. Verbs Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'ROOT' in Verbs Frequency: #1107

Anagrams for ROOT »

1. Troo

How to pronounce ROOT?

1. 

   Alex

   US English

   

   Daniel

   British

   

   Karen

   Australian

   

   Veena

   Indian

How to say ROOT in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of ROOT in Chaldean Numerology is: 2

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of ROOT in Pythagorean Numerology is: 5

Examples of ROOT in a Sentence

1. Plato, The Republic:

   The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

2. Johann von Goethe:

   All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.

3. I Ching:

   Everything proceeds as if of its own accord, and this can all too easily tempt us to relax and let things take their course without troubling over details. Such indifference is the root of all evil.

4. Kabbalah:

   We must learn not to disassociate the airy flower from the earthy root, for the flower that is cut off from its root fades, and its seeds are barren, whereas the root, secure in mother earth, can produce flower after flower and bring their fruit to maturity.

5. Gordana Biernat:

   We seem to be the only species on earth capable of killing for pleasure. The root of evil is not hate. It is ignorance.

Images & Illustrations of ROOT

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