root

root is a 4-letter English word with 32 senses as intransitive verb, transitive verb, noun, and verb in the JumbleFix dictionary. One common meaning is: To turn up the earth with the snout, as swine. Face value is 4 in Scrabble and 4 in Words With Friends. Use the entries below when you need a playable sense, a nearby word, or another arrangement of the same letters.

4 letters · Scrabble 4 · Words With Friends 4 · 32 senses

Definitions

1. intransitive verb. To turn up the earth with the snout, as swine.
2. intransitive verb. Hence, to seek for favor or advancement by low arts or groveling servility; to fawn servilely.
3. transitive verb. To turn up or to dig out with the snout; as, the swine roots the earth.
4. noun. The underground portion of a plant, whether a true root or a tuber, a bulb or rootstock, as in the potato, the onion, or the sweet flag.
5. noun. The descending, and commonly branching, axis of a plant, increasing in length by growth at its extremity only, not divided into joints, leafless and without buds, and having for its offices to fix the plant in the earth, to supply it with moisture and soluble matters, and sometimes to serve as a reservoir of nutriment for future growth. A true root, however, may never reach the ground, but may be attached to a wall, etc., as in the ivy, or may hang loosely in the air, as in some epiphytic orchids.
6. noun. An edible or esculent root, especially of such plants as produce a single root, as the beet, carrot, etc.; as, the root crop.
7. noun. That which resembles a root in position or function, esp. as a source of nourishment or support; that from which anything proceeds as if by growth or development; as, the root of a tooth, a nail, a cancer, and the like.
8. noun. An ancestor or progenitor; and hence, an early race; a stem.
9. noun. A primitive form of speech; one of the earliest terms employed in language; a word from which other words are formed; a radix, or radical.
10. noun. The cause or occasion by which anything is brought about; the source.
11. noun. That factor of a quantity which when multiplied into itself will produce that quantity; thus, 3 is a root of 9, because 3 multiplied into itself produces 9; 3 is the cube root of 27.
12. noun. The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
13. noun. The lowest place, position, or part.
14. noun. The time which to reckon in making calculations.
15. intransitive verb. To fix the root; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
16. intransitive verb. To be firmly fixed; to be established.
17. transitive verb. To plant and fix deeply in the earth, or as in the earth; to implant firmly; hence, to make deep or radical; to establish; -- used chiefly in the participle; as, rooted trees or forests; rooted dislike.
18. transitive verb. To tear up by the root; to eradicate; to extirpate; -- with up, out, or away.
19. noun. the part of a tooth that is embedded in the jaw and serves as support
20. noun. (linguistics) the form of a word after all affixes are removed

    "thematic vowels are part of the stem"

    Synonyms: base, radical, stem, theme

21. noun. a simple form inferred as the common basis from which related words in several languages can be derived by linguistic processes

    Synonyms: etymon

22. noun. the set of values that give a true statement when substituted into an equation

    Synonyms: solution

23. noun. the place where something begins, where it springs into being

    "the Italian beginning of the Renaissance"

    "Jupiter was the origin of the radiation"

    Synonyms: beginning, origin, rootage, source

24. noun. someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)

    Synonyms: ancestor, antecedent, ascendant, ascendent

25. noun. (botany) the usually underground organ that lacks buds or leaves or nodes; absorbs water and mineral salts; usually it anchors the plant to the ground
26. noun. a number that, when multiplied by itself some number of times, equals a given number
27. verb. take root and begin to grow

    "this plant roots quickly"

28. verb. cause to take roots
29. verb. become settled or established and stable in one's residence or life style

    "He finally settled down"

    Synonyms: settle

30. verb. dig with the snout

    "the pig was rooting for truffles"

    Synonyms: rootle, rout

31. verb. plant by the roots
32. verb. come into existence, originate

    "The problem roots in her depression"

Synonyms

base, radical, stem, theme, etymon, solution, beginning, origin, rootage, source, ancestor, antecedent, ascendant, ascendent, settle, rootle, rout

Anagrams

Other playable words that use exactly the letters in root:

oort, roto, toro

Common word forms

roots, rooted, rooter, rooting, rootless

Words from these letters

If you are holding these tiles, the unscrambler for ROOT lists every valid word you can make from the same letters, including shorter plays.