Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The eggs or spawn of a fish, contained within or separated from the ovary, especially when prepared as food.
  • noun The milt-containing testes of a fish, especially when prepared as food.
  • noun The eggs or gonads of certain marine invertebrates, such as a lobster or a sea urchin.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The spawn of a fish.
  • noun The spawn of various crustaceans, used for food, as the berry, coral, or mass of eggs of the female lobster.
  • noun A mottled appearance in wood, especially in mahogany, being the alternate streak of light and shade running with the grain, or from end to end of the log.
  • noun The roe-deer.
  • noun Improperly, the adult female of the hart; the doe of the stag or red deer.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A roebuck. See roebuck.
  • noun The female of any species of deer.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The ova or spawn of fishes and amphibians, especially when still inclosed in the ovarian membranes. Sometimes applied, loosely, to the sperm and the testes of the male.
  • noun A mottled appearance of light and shade in wood, especially in mahogany.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The eggs of fish.
  • noun The sperm of certain fish.
  • noun The ovaries of certain crustaceans.
  • noun A small, nimble Eurasian deer, Capreolus capreolus, with short three-pointed antlers, no visible tail, a white rump patch, and a reddish summer coat that turns grey in winter.
  • noun A mottled appearance of light and shade in wood, especially in mahogany.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fish eggs or egg-filled ovary; having a grainy texture
  • noun the egg mass or spawn of certain crustaceans such as the lobster
  • noun the eggs or egg-laden ovary of a fish
  • noun eggs of female fish

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English roughe, ro, from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch roge.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ca. 1450; Middle English rowe, roof, from earlier roughe, from Middle Dutch rōge, from Proto-Germanic *hrugō (compare Dutch roge, Old High German rogo), from Proto-Indo-European *krek- (“spawn”) (compare Lithuanian kurkulaĩ ‘frog eggs’, Russian кряк (krjak) ‘id.’).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English ro, from Old English , fuller rāha, from Proto-Germanic *raihan (compare Saterland Frisian Räi, Dutch ree, German Reh), from *róiko-, from Proto-Indo-European *rei- (“spotted, streaked”) (compare Irish riabh ‘stripe, streak’, Latvian ràibs ‘spotted’, Russian rjabój ‘mottled fur’).

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