roost

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹuːst/
• (Standard Southern British) IPA^(key): /ɹʉwst/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɹust/
• (Australia, New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ɹʉːst/
• (Wales) IPA^(key): /ɾuːst/
• (foot–goose merger)

• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /ɾʉst/
• (Northern Ireland) IPA^(key): /ɻʉst/

• Rhymes: -uːst

Etymology 1

From Middle English roste (“chicken's roost; perch”), from Old English hrōst (“wooden framework of a roof; roost”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrōst, from Proto-Germanic *hrōstaz (“wooden framework; grill”); see *raustijan.

Cognate with Dutch roest (“roost”), German Low German Rust (“roost”), German Rost (“grate; gridiron; grill”).

Noun

roost (plural roosts)

1. The place where a bird sleeps (usually its nest or a branch).
   • 1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     He clapp'd his wings upon his roost.

2. (collective) A group of birds roosting together.
   • 2018, Clark E. Adams, Urban Wildlife Management‎^[1], CRC Press:

     a roost of birds is merely a fortuitous aggregation of individuals that have strategically placed their roost site to minimize distance to their supplemental and main food sources

   • 2018, Chuma Nwokolo, The Extinction of Menai‎^[2], Ohio University Press:

     A roost of chickens clucked excitedly in the undergrowth to the south of the Mata's enclosure, as a nocturnal snake hunted eggs

3. A bedroom.
4. (Scotland) The open cross-joists or inner roof of a cottage or living space.
5. (Australian rules football) A kick which causes the ball to travel a long distance.
6. Synonym of perch (“a position that is secure and advantageous”).

Derived terms

• cock of the roost
• come home to roost
• henroost
• roostcock
• roostmate
• rule the roost
• the highest branch is not the safest roost

Translations

place for sleeping birds

• Bashkir: төнәү (tünäw)
• Bikol:

  Central Bikol: tugdunan

• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: jóc (ca) m
• Czech: kurník (cs) m, hřad (cs) m
• Estonian: tana (et)
• Finnish: nukkumapaikka
• Galician: poleiro (gl) m
• German: Nest (de) n
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: πέτευρον n (péteuron)

• Irish: fara m
• Italian: pollaio (it) m
• Japanese: 塒 (ja) (ねぐら, negura)
• Latvian: lakta (lv) f
• Lithuanian: lakta f
• Macedonian: се́дело n (sédelo)
• Māori: tūhunga
• Naga:

  Khiamniungan Naga: vēutīng

• Polish: grzęda (pl)
• Portuguese: poleiro (pt)
• Russian: насе́ст (ru) m (nasést)
• Scottish Gaelic: (branch or rod) spiris f
• Serbo-Croatian: кокошињац m, kokošinjac (sh) m
• Spanish: gallinero (es) m, pajarera (es) f
• Turkish: yuva (tr)

  Ottoman Turkish: تونك (tünek)

• Ukrainian: сі́дало n (sídalo)
• Walloon: djoke (wa) m, djocoe (wa) m

Verb

roost (third-person singular simple present roosts, present participle roosting, simple past and past participle roosted)

1. (intransitive, of flying vertebrates) To settle on a perch in order to sleep or rest.
2. (figurative) To spend the night.
   • 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎^[3], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 October 2026:

     The UPS package centre for central London, a brief walk from Kentish Town tube station, holds a below-ground bay in which 170 vans roost every night.

3. (transitive, Australian rules football) To kick (a ball) a long distance.

Derived terms

• aroost
• rooster
• the chickens come home to roost

Translations

settle on a perch in order to sleep or rest

• Bashkir: төнәү (tünäw), ҡуныу (qonıw)
• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Catalan: ajocar-se (ca)
• Czech: hřadovat
• Finnish: nukkua (fi)
• Galician: apoleirar (gl)
• German: auf einem Ast schlafen, auf einer Stange schlafen, übernachten (de)
• Italian: appollaiarsi (it)
• Japanese: 就塒する (ja) (しゅうじする, shūji suru)
• Turkish: tünemek (tr), tüneklemek (tr)

  Ottoman Turkish: تونه‌مك (tünemek), تونكلمك (tüneklemek)

Etymology 2

Noun

roost (plural roosts)

1. (Shetland and Orkney) Alternative form of roust (“a strong tide or current”).
   • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC:

     Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, for a glimpse, it would all disappear and then boil up again. What it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race, which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin.

Etymology 3

Verb

roost (third-person singular simple present roosts, present participle roosting, simple past and past participle roosted)

1. Alternative form of roust.

Anagrams

• Toors, stoor, torso, rotos, ostro, toros, Oorts, Sorto, roots

Manx

Etymology

From Old Irish rúsc, from Proto-Celtic *rūskos (compare Welsh rhisgl).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ruːst/, [ruːs]

Noun

roost m (genitive singular roost, plural roostyn)

1. peel, rind
2. bark

Derived terms

• neuroostit (“unbarked”)

Verb

roost (verbal noun roostey, past participle rooisht)

1. to strip, peel, hull, rind, unbark
2. to rob
3. to bare
4. to debunk
5. to rifle
6. to deprive

Middle English

Noun

roost

1. alternative form of roste (“roast”)