roach1
/rəʊtʃ
/noun informal
1North American A cockroach.For your gaming pleasure, a whole new assortment of mutant insects have been created including killer roaches, acid-shooting houseflies and fire ants....
- Sofia tells them about the horrid and rancid conditions in which she lives, with fleas, vermin, roaches, and about her job cleaning the dirty sheets.
- When I was a graduate student, the room we were staying in had roaches.
2A roll of card or paper that forms the butt of a cannabis cigarette.I went from car to car in the lot, going up to people's windows when they pulled in, even people I didn't know, but nobody even had a roach.
Origin
Early 19th century: shortening of cockroach; sense 2 dates from the 1930s and may represent a different word.
cockroach from early 17th century:
The early written form of cockroach was cacaroch, from the Spanish cucaracha ‘cockroach’. People adapted the spelling to make it fit in better with the more familiar English words cock and roach (Middle English), the freshwater fish, whose origin is unknown.
Rhymes
roach2
/rəʊtʃ/noun (plural same)
An edible Eurasian freshwater fish of the carp family, popular with anglers. It can hybridize with related fishes, notably rudd and bream.
- Rutilus rutilus, family Cyprinidae.
- A shoal of small roach will appear as a black cloud suspended in mid water.
- Both had a single bream plus plenty of small roach on feeder tactics.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French roche, of unknown ultimate origin.
roach3
/rəʊtʃ/noun Sailing
A curved part of a fore-and-aft sail extending beyond a straight line between any two of its three corners, especially on the leech side: full-length battens permit a more pronounced roach
Origin
Late 18th century: of unknown origin.