Definitions

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

  • noun The exterior surface and its supporting structures on the top of a building.
  • noun The upper exterior surface of a dwelling as a symbol of the home itself.
  • noun The top covering of something.
  • noun The upper surface of an anatomical structure, especially one having a vaulted inner structure.
  • noun The highest point or limit; the summit or ceiling.
  • transitive verb To furnish with a roof or cover.
  • idiom (go through the roof) To grow, intensify, or rise to an enormous, often unexpected degree.
  • idiom (go through the roof) To become extremely angry.
  • idiom (raise the roof) To be extremely noisy and boisterous.
  • idiom (raise the roof) To complain loudly and bitterly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The external upper covering of a house or other building.
  • noun Anything which in form or position corresponds to or resembles the covering of a house, as the arch or top of a furnace or oven, the top of a carriage or coach or car, an arch or the interior of a vault, the ceiling of a room, etc.; hence, a canopy or the like.
  • noun A house.
  • noun The upper part of the mouth; the hard palate.
  • noun Figuratively, the loftiest part.
  • noun In geology, the overlying stratum.
  • noun In mining, the top of any subterranean excavation: little used except in coal-mining.
  • noun A roof but slightly inclined for the discharge of water. Roofs of this form are common in city buildings, especially in the United States, and are usually covered with sheet-metal.
  • To cover with a roof, in any sense of that word.
  • To inclose in a house; shelter.
  • To arch or form like a roof.
  • An obsolete preterit of rive.

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

  • transitive verb To cover with a roof.
  • transitive verb To inclose in a house; figuratively, to shelter.
  • noun (Arch.) The cover of any building, including the roofing (see roofing) and all the materials and construction necessary to carry and maintain the same upon the walls or other uprights. In the case of a building with vaulted ceilings protected by an outer roof, some writers call the vault the roof, and the outer protection the roof mask. It is better, however, to consider the vault as the ceiling only, in cases where it has farther covering.
  • noun That which resembles, or corresponds to, the covering or the ceiling of a house
  • noun (Mining.) The surface or bed of rock immediately overlying a bed of coal or a flat vein.
  • noun etc. (Arch.) See under Bell, French, etc.
  • noun (Arch.) A roof nearly horizontal, constructed of such material as allows the water to run off freely from a very slight inclination.
  • noun (Arch.) See Plate, n., 10.

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

  • noun The cover at top of a building.
  • noun The upper part of a cavity.
  • verb To cover or furnish with a roof.

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

  • noun the inner top surface of a covered area or hollow space
  • noun protective covering on top of a motor vehicle
  • verb provide a building with a roof; cover a building with a roof
  • noun a protective covering that covers or forms the top of a building
  • noun an upper limit on what is allowed

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old English hrōf.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English rof, from Old English hrōf ("roof, ceiling; top, summit; heaven, sky"), from Proto-Germanic *hrōfan (“roof”), from Proto-Indo-European *krāpo- (“roof”), from Proto-Indo-European *krāwǝ- (“to cover, heap”). Cognate with Scots ruif ("roof"), Dutch roef ("a cabin, wooden cover, deckhouse"), Low German rof ("roof"), Icelandic hróf ("a shed under which ships are built or kept, roof of a boathouse").

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