Adjacent Words

Roving definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

RO'VING, ppr. Rambling; wandering; passing a cord through an eye.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: migratory; "a restless mobile society"; "the nomadic habits of the Bedouins"; "believed the profession of a peregrine typist would have a happy future"; "wandering tribes" [syn: mobile, nomadic, peregrine, roving, wandering] n
1: travelling about without any clear destination; "she followed him in his wanderings and looked after him" [syn: wandering, roving, vagabondage]

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Etymology: ¹rove Date: 1590 1. a. not restricted as to location or area of concern b. capable of being shifted from place to place ; mobile 2. inclined to ramble or stray <a roving fancy> II. noun Etymology: ⁴rove Date: 1802 a slightly twisted roll or strand of usually textile fibers

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Rove Rove, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Roved; p. pr. & vb. n. Roving.] [Cf. D. rooven to rob; akin to E. reave. See Reave, Rob.] 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 Venus' son, that with thy cruel dart At that good knight so cunningly didst rove. --Spenser. Syn: To wander; roam; range; ramble stroll.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Roving Rov"ing, n. 1. The operatin of forming the rove, or slightly twisted sliver or roll of wool or cotton, by means of a machine for the purpose, called a roving frame, or roving machine. 2. A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and slightly twisted; a rove. See 2d Rove, 2. Roving frame, Roving machine, a machine for drawing and twisting roves and twisting roves and winding them on bobbin for the spinning machine.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Roving Rov"ing, n. The act of one who roves or wanders.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

You use roving to describe a person who travels around, rather than staying in a fixed place. ...a roving reporter... ADJ: ADJ n

Moby Thesaurus

Wanderjahr, aberrant, aberrative, adrift, afloat, afoot and lighthearted, aimless, aimlessness, alternating, amorphous, bumming, by the way, capricious, changeable, changeful, circuitous, circumforaneous, departing, desultoriness, desultory, deviable, deviant, deviating, deviative, deviatory, devious, digressive, digressiveness, discursion, discursive, discursiveness, divagation, divagatory, dizzy, drifting, eccentric, episodic, errant, errantry, erratic, excursive, fast and loose, fickle, fitful, flickering, flighty, flitting, floating, fluctuating, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, freakish, fugitive, gadding, giddy, gypsy-like, gypsyish, hoboism, impetuous, impulsive, inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indirect, infirm, irregular, irresolute, irresponsible, itineracy, itinerancy, labyrinthine, landloping, loose, maundering, mazy, meandering, mercurial, migrational, migratory, moody, nomad, nomadic, nomadism, out-of-the-way, perambulatory, peregrination, pererration, peripatetic, planetary, ramble, rambling, ranging, restless, roam, roaming, rove, scatterbrained, serpentine, shapeless, shifting, shifty, shuffling, snaky, spasmodic, spineless, straggling, stray, straying, strolling, swerving, traipsing, transient, transitory, transmigratory, turning, twisting, unaccountable, uncertain, uncontrolled, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, unfixed, unpredictable, unreliable, unrestrained, unsettled, unstable, unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, vacillating, vagabond, vagabondage, vagabondia, vagabondism, vagrancy, vagrant, variable, veering, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile, wandering, wanderlust, wanton, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayfaring, wayward, whimsical, winding, wishy-washy, zigzag