Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The usually underground portion of a plant that lacks buds, leaves, or nodes and serves as support, draws minerals and water from the surrounding soil, and sometimes stores food.
- noun Any of various other underground plant parts, especially an underground stem such as a rhizome, corm, or tuber.
- noun The embedded part of an organ or structure such as a hair, tooth, or nerve, that serves as a base or support.
- noun The bottom or supporting part of something.
- noun The essential part or element; the basic core.
- noun A primary source; an origin. synonym: origin.
- noun A progenitor or ancestor from which a person or family is descended.
- noun The condition of being settled and of belonging to a particular place or society.
- noun The state of having or establishing an indigenous relationship with or a personal affinity for a particular culture, society, or environment.
- noun The element that carries the main component of meaning in a word and provides the basis from which a word is derived by adding affixes or inflectional endings or by phonetic change.
- noun Such an element reconstructed for a protolanguage.
- noun A number that when multiplied by itself an indicated number of times forms a product equal to a specified number. For example, a fourth root of 4 is √2.
- noun A number that reduces a polynomial equation in one variable to an identity when it is substituted for the variable.
- noun A number at which a polynomial has the value zero.
- noun The note from which a chord is built.
- noun Such a note occurring as the lowest note of a triad or other chord.
- intransitive verb To grow roots or a root.
- intransitive verb To become firmly established or settled.
- intransitive verb To plant and fix the roots of (a plant) in soil or the ground.
- intransitive verb To establish or settle firmly.
- intransitive verb To be the source or origin of.
- intransitive verb To dig or pull out by the roots. Often used with up or out.
- intransitive verb To remove or get rid of. Often used with out.
- idiom (root and branch) Utterly; completely.
- intransitive verb To turn up by digging with the snout or nose.
- intransitive verb To cause to appear or be known. Used with out.
- intransitive verb To turn over the earth with the snout or nose.
- intransitive verb To search or rummage for something.
- intransitive verb To give audible encouragement or applause to a contestant or team; cheer. synonym: applaud.
- intransitive verb To give moral support to someone; hope for a favorable outcome for someone.
from The Century Dictionary.
- A dialectal form of
rot . - noun In mech., the part of a gear-tooth where it joins the rim of the wheel; the base of a tooth.
- noun The sweet-flag.
- To dig or burrow in with the snout; turn up with the snout, as a swine.
- To tear up or out as if by rooting; eradicate; extirpate; remove or destroy utterly; exterminate: generally with up, out, or away.
- To turn up the earth with the snout, as swine.
- To push with the snout.
- To fix the root; strike root; enter the earth, as roots.
- To be firmly fixed; be established.
- To fix by the root or as if by roots; plant and fix deep in the earth: as, a tree roots itself; a deeply rooted tree.
- To plant deeply; impress deeply and durably: used chiefly in the past participle.
- noun A form of
rut . - To work hard for the success of some person or thing: as, to
root for one's party (at an election); specifically, in base-ball, etc., to exert oneself for the success of one's side, usually by uproarious applause intended partly to disconcert the other side.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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The one that drives me crazy is when I'm trying to change to a directory with only root access: john@p490: ~$ cd / root john@p490: / root$ cd. gconf bash: cd:. gconf: Permission denied john@p490: / root$ sudo cd. gconf sudo: cd: command not found
Linux Journal - The Original Magazine of the Linux Community 2009
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The one that drives me crazy is when I'm trying to change to a directory with only root access: john@p490: ~$ cd / root john@p490: / root$ cd. gconf bash: cd:. gconf: Permission denied john@p490: / root$ sudo cd. gconf sudo: cd: command not found
Linux Journal - The Original Magazine of the Linux Community 2009
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$self - > conf - > {root}; my $ fi le = fi le ($root, "static", $path); my $size = - s _; my $mtime =
Recently Uploaded Slideshows miyagawa 2009
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# access the document root my $root = $xdoc - > root;
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'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it _root_, instead of
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 Various
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"Observaciones sobre el clima de Lima y sus influencias en los seres organizados en especial el hombre."] [Footnote 16: The women of Lima clean their teeth several times a day with the root called _Raiz de dientes_ (literally _root for the teeth_), of which they keep a piece constantly in their pocket.] [Footnote 17: It is related that, during the war of independence, when
Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests Johann Jakob von Tschudi 1853
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"The German name is 'Mangold wurzel,' or 'Mangold root;' but it is sometimes pronounced 'Mangel wurzel,' which means _scarcity root_; and, by a strange translation, it is called in French _racine d'abondance_, as well as _racine de disette_.
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Our word root comes from an Indo-European word that meant both “root” and “branch.”
On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004
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Our word root comes from an Indo-European word that meant both “root” and “branch.”
On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen Harold McGee 2004
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Maybe its Latin root is cunnus or its Swedish and Norwegian root is kunta.
oroboros commented on the word root
Contronymic in the sense: take root vs. root out.
January 31, 2007
brtom commented on the word root
My language increased and strengthened, and sent my mind into the place like a live root system. Wendell Berry "A Native Hill"
July 19, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word root
Delightful discussion about this term going on over at beetroot... And now that I think of it, is WeirdNet being lascivious again...?
P.S. according to the 12th definition, we are all roots.
October 1, 2008
bilby commented on the word root
"the place where something begins, where it springs into being" *sgnigger*
October 1, 2008