root

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“

No; the active part of the root is always, I believe, a fibre.

—Proserpina, Volume 1 Studies Of Wayside Flowers

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American Heritage Dictionary (29)

noun The usually underground portion of a plant that lacks buds, leaves, or nodes and serves as support, draws minerals and water from the surrounding soil, and sometimes stores food.
noun Any of various other underground plant parts, especially an underground stem such as a rhizome, corm, or tuber.
noun The embedded part of an organ or structure such as a hair, tooth, or nerve, that serves as a base or support.

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Century Dictionary (96)

In botany, a part of the body of a plant which, typically, grows downward into the soil, fixes the plant, and absorbs nutriment. A root may be either a descending axis originating in germination from the lower end of the caulicle, and persisting as a tap-root, or one of a group of such roots—in either case called primary; or a branch of such a root, the ultimate ramifications forming rootlets or root-fibrils; or a similar organ developed from some other part of the plant (adventitious), sometimes with special functions—in the latter cases called secondary. The root differs from the stem in having no nodes and internodes, its branches appearing in no regular order, and, normally, in giving rise to no other organs, though, as in the pear and poplar, it may develop buds and thence suckers. In mode of growth the root is peculiar in elongating only or chiefly at the extremity, and at the same time in not building upon the naked apex, but in a stratum (the growing-point) just short of the apex under the protection of a cover or sheath—the root-cap (which see). Aside from securing the plant in position, the ordinary function of roots is the absorption of water with nutritive matter in solution from the soil, or, in the case of aquatics, wholly or partly from the water. This office is performed by imbibition through the cell-walls of the fresher root-surface, except that of the extreme tip, the absorbent surface being greatly increased by the production of root-hairs. (See root-hair.) Many roots, however—chiefly the tap-roots of biennials—serve the special purpose of storing nutriment for a second season, becoming thus much enlarged, as in the beet and turnip. Roots of this class must be distinguished from the rhizome, bulb, etc., which, though subterranean, are modifications of the stem. Numerous plants put forth aërial roots, eventually reaching the soil (banian, mangrove), serving as means of climbing (ivy, poison-ivy), or, in the case of epiphytes, part fastening the plant to a bough, part free in the air, whence they are capable of absorbing some moisture. The roots of a parasitic plant penetrate the tissues of the host-plant and draw their nutritive matter from it. True roots are confined to flowering plants and vascular cryptogams, the rhizoids of many lower plants in part taking their place. See annual, biennial, perennial. See also cuts under ivy, monocotyledonous, prothallium, and rhizome. An oak whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood. Shak., As you Like it, ii. 1. 31.
Specifically, an esculent root, as a beet or a carrot. But his neat cookery ! he cut our roots In characters. Shak., Cymbeline, iv. 2. 49.
That which resembles a root in shape, position, or function; that from which anything springs. The part of anything that resembles the root of a plant in manner of growth, or as a source of nourishment, support, or origin; specifically, in anatomy and zoology, some part or organ like or likened to the root of a plant; the deepest or most fixed part of something embedded in another; a base, bottom, or supporting part: technically called radix: as, the root of a finger-nail or a tooth; the root of a nerve or a hair: often used in the plural, though the thing in fact is singular: as, to drag out a nail by the roots. The colde blode that was at our lordes herte rote Fell within Iosephes sherte & lay on his chest. Joseph of Arimathie (E. E. T. S.), p. 38. Each false [word] Be as a cauterizing to the root o' the tongue. Shak., T. of A., v. 1. 136.

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Examples (50)

• Maca - Indigenous to the mountains of Peru, this extract from the Maca root is a known aphrodisiac. — BeanRocket Blog Communities Lastest Posts
Containing a myriad of biologically active ingredients the root is also an expectorant and therefore used extensively in cough syrups. — ConfectioneryNews RSS
In Chinese medicine, different parts of the dong quai root are believed to have different actions - the head of the root has anticoagulant activity, the main part of the root is a tonic, and the end of the root eliminates blood stagnation. it is considered the "female ginseng" because of its balancing effect on the female hormonal system. — Find Me A Cure
The configuration from from the root will be also applied to the virtual folders - thats something which has caught me out previously. — ASP.NET Forums
This root is the indwelling of God the Holy Ghost in the soul. — General Gordon Saint and Soldier

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plant · seed · branch · fruit · tree · growth · element · trunk · bark · form · stem · leaf

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (7)

American Heritage Dictionary (3)

Middle English rot, from Old English rōt, from Old Norse; see wrād- in Indo-European roots.
Middle English wroten, from Old English wrōtan.
Possibly alteration of rout³.

Century Dictionary (4)

from Middle English roote, rote, from late Anglo-Saxon rōt (accusative plural rota, occurring in connection with barc (see bark) in a fragment printed in Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, I. 378), from Icelandic rōt = Swedish Norwegian rot = Danish rod, a root, the lower part of a tree, a root in mathematics; prob. orig. with initial w (Icelandic v, reg. lost before r), Icelandic *vrōt = Anglo-Saxon *wrōt, a collateral form of wyrt = Old High German Middle High German wurz, German wurz, a plant, = Gothic (Moesogothic) waurts, a root; prob. akin to W. gwreiddyn = OCorn. grueiten, a root, Latin rādix (√ vrad), a root, = Greek ῤάδιξ (√ Νραδ), a branch, a root, ῤίζα (for *Νρίδγα, √ Νριδ), a root: see wort, and cf. radix, rhizome. See also root.
= Swedish rota, take root; from the noun. Cf. root.
Also rout, early modern English wroot, wrout; from Middle English roten, routen, properly wroten, from Anglo-Saxon wrōtan, root or grub up, as a hog, = NFries. wretten = Middle Dutch, Dutch wroeten = Middle Low German wrōten, Low German wröten, root or grub in the earth, = Old High German ruozjan, ruozzan, root up (cf. German rotten, reuten, roden, root out), = Icelandic rōta = Swedish Norwegian rota = Danish rode, root, grub up; connected with the noun, Anglo-Saxon wrōt = OFries. *wrōte, snout, = Old High German diminutive *ruozil, Middle High German rüezel, German rüssel, snout; perhaps allied to L. rōdere, gnaw, nag, and to radere, scratch: see rodent, rase, raze. The verb is commonly associated with the noun root as if root up or uproot meant ‘pull up the roots of,’ ‘pull up by the roots’; but it means rather ‘raise or plow up with the snout,’ and is orig. applied to swine.
Supposed to be a slang use of root, v. i.

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