Other forms: rookeries
A rookery is a colony of nests high in the trees. A noisy rookery, the rookery in the elms, nesting in the rookery.
Rooks nest close together and repair the same nests each year, so a rookery can outlast the people who watched it. The word also names a breeding colony of seals or penguins, and in Victorian cities it meant a slum.
1nounrookeryA colony of nests high in the trees.
“The rookery in the tall elms was noisy with birds every spring.”
rookery is a colony.
Rook plus -ery, the ending naming a place where something is kept or gathers, recorded from 1725.
pal
lhw' — rook, castle (chess)
Persian
رخ
Old French
roc
Middle English
rook
English
rook
English, today
rookery
From rook + ery, 1725. rook Middle English rook, rooke, roke, rok, from Old French roc, ultimately from Persian رخ, from pal lhw' (“rook, castle (chess)”). Compare roc.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA