Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make (a liquid) muddy or cloudy by stirring up sediment.
- v. To displease or disturb; vex: My roommate's off-putting habits began to roil me.
- v. To be in a state of turbulence or agitation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To run; wander; roll; rove.
- To render turbid by stirring up the dregs or sediment: as, to roil wine, cider, or other liquor in casks or bottles.
- To excite to some degree of anger; annoy; vex: now more commonly, in colloquial use, rile.
- To perplex.
- To salt (fish) by means of a roiler.
- n. A Flemish horse.
Wiktionary
- v. To render turbid by stirring up the dregs or sediment of
- v. To annoy; to make someone angry.
- v. intransitive To bubble, seethe.
- v. obsolete, intransitive To wander; to roam.
- v. obsolete, UK, dialect, intransitive To romp.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To render turbid by stirring up the dregs or sediment of; , in casks or bottles; to
roil a spring. - v. To disturb, as the temper; to ruffle the temper of; to rouse the passion of resentment in; to perplex.
- v. obsolete To wander; to roam.
- v. Prov. Eng. To romp.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make turbid by stirring up the sediments of
- v. be agitated
Etymologies
- Possibly from French Middle French rouiller ("to rust, make muddy"), from Old French rouil ("mud, rust"), from Vulgar Latin *robicula, from Latin robigo ("rust, blight") (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word roil has appeared in 33 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Aug. 8 in The Caucus blog post "Rick Perry to Make Clear He Intends to Run," by Jeff Zeleny:”
“(BTW, "roil" means, disturb, muddy the waters - I had to look it up.)”
“Young Americans came to view religion, according to one survey, as judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical, and too political.49 All these were premonitory signs that a second major aftershock was about to roil the American religious landscape.”
“In a rare interview with a reporter, Harry A. Blackmun spoke publicly for the first time about the controversial decision that continues to roil the political waters 38 years later.”
The Huffington Post: Al Eisele: The Quiet Man Who Wrote Roe v. Wade
“It it, he spoke publicly for the first time about the controversial decision that continues to roil the political waters 38 years later.”
The Huffington Post: Al Eisele: The Quiet Man Who Wrote Roe v. Wade
“That will roil the water and freeze it, but not boil it.”
“Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg (1990) - As the coldly devastating consequences of Hitler's Final Solution roil the streets and ghettoes of Budapest in 1944, mild-mannered businessman Raoul Wallenberg (Stellan Skarsgard) strives valiantly to protect Hungarian Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis.”
The Huffington Post: John Farr: Never Again: Ten Great Holocaust Films You May Have Missed
“The earthquake and its aftermath in Japan continued to roil electronics supply chains Monday as Texas Instruments Inc. projected that one of its chip factories damaged in the disaster won't ship at full volume until September.”
“NEW YORK—Investors' new anxieties tied to Japan helped send the stock market's volatility benchmark to its biggest intraday jump since Libya and oil worries started to roil markets last month.”
The Wall Street Journal: Stock Volatility Index Jumps on Japan Anxieties
“A suicide car bomber struck a police building in Pakistan's main northwest city on Wednesday, killing five police officers and wounding at least 30 other people in the latest violence to roil the country since the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘roil’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
-
Americanism
American words
finest, fast food, acclimate, aluminum, alphabetize, airplane, affirmative action, arugula, backhoe, bangs, base board, bayou and 162 more...
-
Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
-
Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 272 more...
-
Words from Blood Meridian
visage, affray, scullery, miasma, mirth, purlieu, tacit, benighted, wickiup, corral, amble, accoutre and 210 more...
-
words 1
Traduce, Ramify, precipitous, rapture, adumbrate, knell, smolder, vagary, choleric, sibylline, hypocritical, jejune and 185 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
GRE Words R
raiment, regale, reprise, renege, reproach, reprobate, reticent, riposte, rubric, rapacious, ruffian, rote and 3 more...
-
Oily
Words and phrases that have "oil" in them.
oil, oily, olive oil, crude oil, toil, boil, trefoil, foil, roil, broil, coil, soil and 70 more...
-
Browning words of cotton - often stic...
words that meander or have a partial dimension:
words that "catch on": peano curves: fractalitescotton, clue, filament, filaria, filum, filovirus, clod, cloud, peano curve, alveoli, nuance, noil and 122 more...
-
Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
-
ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
-
wickedwitch's list
lll
alit, plinth, eclat, diaphanous, portico, nival, daedal, apse, fossa, pellet, avail, midge and 143 more...
-
other lookups
-
caspermilktoast's Words
frenetic, farrago, fandango, ensemble, assay, emulsion, taut, winnow, ridonkulous, ginormous, frisson, idee fixe and 181 more...
-
bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1459 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for roil.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.