rove
verb /rəʊv/
/rəʊv/
Verb Forms
| present simple I / you / we / they rove | /rəʊv/ /rəʊv/ |
| he / she / it roves | /rəʊvz/ /rəʊvz/ |
| past simple roved | /rəʊvd/ /rəʊvd/ |
| past participle roved | /rəʊvd/ /rəʊvd/ |
| -ing form roving | /ˈrəʊvɪŋ/ /ˈrəʊvɪŋ/ |
- [intransitive, transitive] (formal) to travel from one place to another, often with no particular purpose synonym roam
- + adv./prep. A quarter of a million refugees roved around the country.
- rove something bands of thieves who roved the countryside
- [intransitive] (+ adv./prep.) if somebody’s eyes rove, they keep looking in different directions
- Ali’s eyes roved over the map.
Word Originlate 15th cent. (originally a term in archery in the sense ‘shoot at a casual mark of undetermined range’): perhaps from dialect rave ‘to stray’, probably of Scandinavian origin.