roots


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root 1

 (ro͞ot, ro͝ot)
n.
1.
a. 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.
b. Any of various other underground plant parts, especially an underground stem such as a rhizome, corm, or tuber.
2.
a. The embedded part of an organ or structure such as a hair, tooth, or nerve, that serves as a base or support.
b. The bottom or supporting part of something: We snipped the wires at the roots.
3. The essential part or element; the basic core: I finally got to the root of the problem.
4. A primary source; an origin. See Synonyms at origin.
5. A progenitor or ancestor from which a person or family is descended.
6.
a. often roots The condition of being settled and of belonging to a particular place or society: Our roots in this town go back a long way.
b. roots The state of having or establishing an indigenous relationship with or a personal affinity for a particular culture, society, or environment: music with unmistakable African roots.
7. Linguistics
a. 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.
b. Such an element reconstructed for a protolanguage. Also called radical.
8. Mathematics
a. 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. Also called nth root.
b. A number that reduces a polynomial equation in one variable to an identity when it is substituted for the variable.
c. A number at which a polynomial has the value zero.
9. Music
a. The note from which a chord is built.
b. Such a note occurring as the lowest note of a triad or other chord.
v. root·ed, root·ing, roots
v.intr.
1. To grow roots or a root: Carrot tops will root in water.
2. To become firmly established or settled: The idea of tolerance has rooted in our culture.
v.tr.
1. To plant and fix the roots of (a plant) in soil or the ground.
2. To establish or settle firmly: Our love of the ocean has rooted us here.
3. To be the source or origin of: "Much of [the team's] success was rooted in the bullpen" (Dan Shaughnessy).
4.
a. To dig or pull out by the roots. Often used with up or out: We rooted out the tree stumps with a tractor.
b. To remove or get rid of. Often used with out: "declared that waste and fraud will be vigorously rooted out of Government" (New York Times).
Idiom:
root and branch
Utterly; completely: The organization has been transformed root and branch by its new leaders.
[Middle English rot, from Old English rōt, from Old Norse; see wrād- in Indo-European roots.]
root′er n.

root 2

 (ro͞ot, ro͝ot)
v. root·ed, root·ing, roots
v.tr.
1. To turn up by digging with the snout or nose: hogs that rooted up acorns.
2. To cause to appear or be known. Used with out: an investigation that rooted out the source of the problem.
v.intr.
1. To turn over the earth with the snout or nose.
2. To search or rummage for something: rooted around for a pencil in his cluttered office.
[Middle English wroten, from Old English wrōtan.]
root′er n.

root 3

 (ro͞ot, ro͝ot)
intr.v. root·ed, root·ing, roots
1. To give audible encouragement or applause to a contestant or team; cheer. See Synonyms at applaud.
2. To give moral support to someone; hope for a favorable outcome for someone: We'll be rooting for you when you take the exam.
[Possibly alteration of rout.]
root′er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

roots

(ruːts)
adj
(Pop Music) (of popular music) going back to the origins of a style, esp in being genuine and unpretentious: roots rock.
ˈrootsy adj
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.roots - the condition of belonging to a particular place or group by virtue of social or ethnic or cultural lineageroots - the condition of belonging to a particular place or group by virtue of social or ethnic or cultural lineage; "his roots in Texas go back a long way"; "he went back to Sweden to search for his roots"; "his music has African roots"
condition - a mode of being or form of existence of a person or thing; "the human condition"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations
korene
Collins Multilingual Translator © HarperCollins Publishers 2009
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From the narrowness of the gorge, and the steepness of its sides, there was no mode of advancing but by wading through the water; stumbling every moment over the impediments which lay hidden under its surface, or tripping against the huge roots of trees.
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The figure was horizontal; the smaller roots had begun to unite at the breast.
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"From the grass roots down," he muttered in an awestricken voice, as he swung his pick into the yielding surface.
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Game was scanty, and they had to eke out their scanty fare with wild roots and vegetables, such as the Indian potato, the wild onion, and the prairie tomato, and they met with quantities of "red root," from which the hunters make a very palatable beverage.
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Likewise, when the women went into the mountains after roots and berries, five of the ten men went with them to guard them.
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The trunk and the roots are even more nourishing than the leaves or branches, and the meaner people, when they go a journey, make no provision of any other victuals.
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I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to consider what it were best to do.
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So it was, as the laying season began, and when both Bashti and Agno were acutely egg-yearning after six months of abstinence, that Agno led Jerry along the taboo path through the mangroves, where they stepped from root to root above the muck that ever steamed and stank in the stagnant air where the wind never penetrated.
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I told him, too, where they were, and how one of them had fallen into a stream and lay there on its back drowned, with its forefoot caught in a forked root. As my Ehlose told me so I told the headman.
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When spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called "Mashka's sweet root." It was very bitter, but they wandered about the fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it, though they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant.
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ho!" quoth he, "that's for me," and soon rooted it out from beneath the straw.
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I hurt it when I was trying to root up an oak-tree.' The Herd-boy took off his shirt, and bound up the Giant's wounded foot with it.
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