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roof
[roof, roof]
noun
plural
roofsthe external upper covering of a house or other building.
a frame for supporting this.
an open-timbered roof.
the highest part or summit.
The Himalayas are the roof of the world.
something that in form or position resembles the roof of a house, as the top of a car, the upper part of the mouth, etc.
a house.
Mining.the rock immediately above a horizontal mineral deposit.
verb (used with object)
to provide or cover with a roof.
roof
/ ː /
noun
a structure that covers or forms the top of a building
( in combination )
the rooftop
( as modifier )
a roof garden
the top covering of a vehicle, oven, or other structure
the roof of a car
anatomy any structure that covers an organ or part
the roof of the mouth
a highest or topmost point or part
Mount Everest is the roof of the world
a house or other shelter
a poor man's roof
mountaineering the underside of a projecting overhang
informal
to get extremely angry; become furious
to rise or increase steeply
to create a boisterous disturbance
to react or protest heatedly
verb
(tr) to provide or cover with a roof or rooflike part
Other Word Forms
- rooflike adjective
- reroof verb (used with object)
- self-roofed adjective
- underroof noun
- unroofed adjective
- ˈǴǴڱ adjective
- ˈǴǴڱ noun
- ˈǴǴˌ adjective
Word History and Origins
Origin of roof1
Word History and Origins
Origin of roof1
Idioms and Phrases
go through the roof,
to increase beyond all expectations.
Foreign travel may very well go through the roof next year.
Informal. Also hit the roof to lose one's temper; become extremely angry.
raise the roof,
to create a loud noise.
The applause raised the roof.
to complain or protest noisily.
He'll raise the roof when he sees that bill.
Example Sentences
"The whole time all we could hear was the sound of our ceilings and our roofs caving in behind us."
The ground's TV gantry is notorious for the precarious journey across its roof to access it.
In St John's Hospital in Livingston the following day, he was told his blood pressure was "through the roof".
On their quiet suburban street in Rishon LeZion, just south of Tel Aviv, the roofs of several homes had caved in.
The roof of the red sandstone building - where the Royal Bar is on the ground floor - has been completely destroyed.
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When To Use
The plural form of roof is roofs (not rooves). Roof is not pluralized by replacing the -f ending with -ves, as is done in many other words ending in -f, such as shelf/shelves, scarf/scarves, and hoof/hooves. The word roof comes from Old English, and like many Old English-derived words ending in -f, it initially had two plural forms: roofs and rooves. It’s not clear why rooves dropped out of use. It might be simply because we don’t use the plural form of roof very often, compared to more common words like leaf/leaves. Other examples of this pluralization pattern include proof/proofs, chief/chiefs, and brief/briefs.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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