Root Definition–noun | 1. | a part of the body of a plant that develops, typically, from the radicle and grows downward into the soil, anchoring the plant and absorbing nutriment and moisture. | | 2. | a similar organ developed from some other part of a plant, as one of those by which ivy clings to its support. | |
| 3. | any underground part of a plant, as a rhizome. | | 4. | something resembling or suggesting the root of a plant in position or function: roots of wires and cables. | | 5. | the embedded or basal portion of a hair, tooth, nail, nerve, etc. | | 6. | the fundamental or essential part: the root of a matter. | | 7. | the source or origin of a thing: The love of money is the root of all evil. | | 8. | a person or family as the source of offspring or descendants. | | 10. | Mathematics. | a. | Also called nth root. a quantity that, when multiplied by itself a certain number of times, produces a given quantity: The number 2 is the square root of 4, the cube root of 8, and the fourth root of 16. | | b. | rth root, the quantity raised to the power 1/r: The number 2 is the 1/3 root of 8. | | c. | a value of the argument of a function for which the function takes the value zero. | | | 11. | Grammar. | a. | a morpheme that underlies an inflectional or derivational paradigm, as dance, the root in danced, dancer, or ten-, the root of Latin tendere “to stretch.” | | b. | such a form reconstructed for a parent language, as *sed-, the hypothetical proto-Indo-European root meaning “sit.” | | | 12. | roots, | a. | a person's original or true home, environment, and cul
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ture: He's lived in New York for twenty years, but his roots are in France. | | b. | the personal relationships, affinity for a locale, habits, and the like, that make a country, region, city, or town one's true home: He lived in Tulsa for a few years, but never established any roots there. | | c. | personal identification with a culture, religion, etc., seen as promoting the development of the character or the stability of society as a whole. | | | 13. | Music. | a. | the fundamental tone of a compound tone or of a series of harmonies. | | b. | the lowest tone of a chord when arranged as a series of thirds; the fundamental. | | | 14. | Machinery. | a. | (in a screw or other threaded object) the narrow inner surface between threads. Compare crest (def. 18), flank (def. 7). | | b. | (in a gear) the narrow inner surface between teeth. | | | 15. | Australian Informal. an act of sexual intercourse. | | 16. | Shipbuilding. the inner angle of an angle iron. | –verb (used without object) | 17. | to become fixed or established. | –verb (used with object) | 18. | to fix by or as if by roots: We were rooted to the spot by surprise. | | 19. | to implant or establish deeply: Good manners were rooted in him like a second nature. | | 20. | to pull, tear, or dig up by the roots (often fol. by up or out). | | 21. | to extirpate; exterminate; remove completely (often fol. by up or out): to root out crime. | —Idioms | 22. | root and branch, utterly; entirely: to destroy something root and branch. | | 23. | take root, | a. | to send out roots; begin to grow. | | b. | to become fixed or established: The prejudices of parents usually take root in their children. | | |
