roof

UK/ɹuːf/US/ɹuːf/

nounA22 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #976 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: roofs

The roof is the top covering of a building, the part that keeps the rain out. Tiles, slate, or flat felt and a drain.

The word extends to anything with a covering top: the roof of a car, the roof of a cave, the roof of your mouth. It carries a great deal of English idiom with it. A roof over your head means somewhere to live, hitting the roof means losing your temper, and going through the roof means either that prices rose sharply or that the crowd made an enormous noise. The plural is roofs, though rooves was once written too.

Definitions of roof

1nounroofThe top covering of a building.A2~88%
“The roof leaked all winter.”
2nounsurfaceThe top surface of something enclosed.B1~12%
“He burnt the roof of his mouth.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

hit the roof — become suddenly very angry
a roof over your head — somewhere to live, counted as the bare minimum

Where it comes from

Old English hrōf meant both a roof and the sky, the roof of the world. English has kept the smaller of the two meanings.

Middle English
rof
English, today
roof

Built from

*krāwə- · Proto-Indo-European — to cover, heap

From Middle English rof. From Middle English rhof, rof, roof, rooff, rufe, ruffe, from Old English hrōf (“roof; heaven, sky”), from Proto-West Germanic hrōf, from Proto-Germanic hrōfą (“roof”), from Proto-Indo-European ḱrapo- (“roof”), from krāwə- (“to cover, heap”). 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Around the House, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

roof in the wild

A roof is part of the building envelope.
Roof
In most countries, a roof protects primarily against rain.
Roof
A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place.
Convertible
A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving experience and can provide a roof when required.
Convertible
The upper slope of the roof may not be visible from street level when viewed from close proximity to the building.
Mansard roof

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of roof

1nounroofThe top covering of a building.A2~88%

“The roof leaked all winter.”

2nounsurfaceThe top surface of something enclosed.B1~12%

“He burnt the roof of his mouth.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.