Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To rout, especially out of bed.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To rouse or disturb; rout out; stir or start up.
- To stir or act briskly; move or work energetically. Compare roustabout.
- n. A tidal current.
- To drive fiercely, as a current.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive to rout out of bed; to rouse
- v. transitive, slang to arrest
- n. A strong tide or current, especially in a narrow channel.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. Prov. Eng. & Local, U.S. To rouse; to disturb.
- n. A strong tide or current, especially in a narrow channel.
Etymologies
- Probably alteration of rouse. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I fancied that I could even hear the deep "roust" she made as she respired the air, without which she cannot exist any more than animals of the land or air.”
“Some law-enforcement authorities went all the way to Turkey to roust alleged mortgage fraudster Diane H. Frederick Atari.”
“If your kids go wading into the water by the fountain it's likely the Lake Corporation coppers in their boat will come and roust them out.”
“He also knows Jose will roust the new guy from bed if he's overslept or had a boozy weekend.”
“And in my book-walled den, the mausoleum of the thoughts of men, I take my drink, and other drinks, and roust out the sleeping dogs from the recesses of my brain and hallo them on over the walls of prejudice and law and through all the cunning labyrinths of superstition and belief.”
“Why should these companies bring jobs back here, when over there they can roust thousands from dorms at midnight and make them use toxic chemicals for 12 hours a day for very low pay to make iPhone screens that he can sell at fantastically high prices?”
The Huffington Post: Dave Johnson: China Is Very "Business-Friendly"
“No American plant can roust workers out of nearby dorms at midnight to force them onto a 12-hour shift.”
The Huffington Post: Dave Johnson: China Is Very "Business-Friendly"
“If we first looked at them in kind-ness, it would be a whole lot more difficult to roust the anger and hatred and fear necessary to corrupt their legitimacy.”
“The eye is naturally drawn to action, and so the first time through Peter Bentley's "King Jack and the Dragon" Dial Books for Young Readers, 32 pages, $17.99 , young children may be inclined to focus on gallant Jack and his friend, Zak, as they brandish wooden swords to roust a host of imaginary beasts.”
The Wall Street Journal: A Tiny Ambassador to Entrancing Worlds
“So the "democratic move" was to have the Honduran military roust the President from his bed, under gunfire and in the wee hours of the morning, stuff him on a plane — still in his pajamas — and force him into exile.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘roust’.
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Public List: Two by Fives
This is an experiment in public lists--something I've been thinking about for some time. The goal is to create a collection of short, powerful, evocative words.
This is an open list. A...icy, howl, hymn, thorn, fire, vile, mist, blunt, scum, dark, shot, gleam and 221 more...
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to acquire
moustache, thoughtcrime, lift, overall, razor, strength, oily, gin, oily gin, brotherhood, dull, toward and 108 more...
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Some new Wordie words this week
Don't tell them they are not real--they might cry.
glover, breakfront, submaximal, criticality, lanoline, mouthy, botheration, metaphorically, metaphase, disavowal, arum, ostentatiously and 162 more...
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drseatbelt's Words
bilious, centenarian, droll, palliative, cortege, stultify, polysemy, suffuse, lambent, timorous, aegis, modicum and 236 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 1999 more...
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words i should know
insular, pernicious, apotheosis, insouciant, implacable, capitulate, canorous, putative, endemic, philistine, prolix, lacuna and 37 more...
Tweets
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