rove Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment
    ramble; stray; cast; swan; drift; wander; tramp; range; roam; vagabond; roll.
    • The gypsies roamed the woods
    • roving vagabonds
    • the wandering Jew
    • The cattle roam across the prairie
    • the laborers drift from one town to the next
    • They rolled from town to town
  2. verb pass a rope through
    reeve.
    • reeve an opening
  3. verb pass through a hole or opening
    reeve.
    • reeve a rope
  4. verb fasten by passing through a hole or around something
    reeve.

WordNet

Rove transitive verb
Etymology
perhaps fr. or akin to reeve.
Definitions
  1. To draw through an eye or aperture.
  2. To draw out into falkes; to card, as wool. Jamieson.
  3. To twist slightly; to bring together, as slivers of wool or cotton, and twist slightly before spinning.
Rove noun
Definitions
  1. A copper washer upon which the end of a nail is clinched in boat building.
  2. A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and lighty twisted, preparatory to futher process; a roving.
Rove intransitive verb
Etymology
Cf. D. rooven to rob; akin to E. reave. See Reave Rob.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Roved ; present participle & verbal noun Roving
Definitions
  1. To practice robbery on the seas;to wander about on the seas in piracy. Obs. Hakluyt.
  2. Hence, to wander; to ramble; to rauge; to go, move, or pass without certain direction in any manner, by sailing, walking, riding, flying, or otherwise.
    For who has power to walk has power to rove. Arbuthnot.
  3. (Archery) To shoot at rovers; hence, to shoot at an angle of elevation, not at point-blank (rovers usually being beyond the point-blank range).
    Fair Venusson that with thy cruel dart At that good knoght cunningly didst rove. Spenser.
    Syn. -- To wander; roam; range; ramble stroll.
Rove transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To wander over or through.
    Roving the field, i chanced A goodly tree far distant to behold. milton.
  2. To plow into ridges by turning the earth of two furrows together.
Rove noun
Definitions
  1. The act of wandering; a ramble.
    In thy nocturnal rove one moment halt. Young.

Webster 1913