Other forms: roommates
A roommate is the person you share your flat with. My old roommate, find a roommate, roommate trouble.
American and British usage differ sharply: in America a roommate can share the flat rather than the room, where British English says flatmate or housemate and keeps roommate for actually sharing a room. Note the compound, room plus mate.
1nounroommateA person you share a room or flat with.
“My roommate plays loud music late at night, so I can't sleep.”
roommate is a person you live with.
Also accepted in games: flatmate, housemate
Middle English
roum
English
room
English, today
roommate
Built from
From room + -mate. room comes from Middle English roum. From Middle English roum (“room, space”), from Old English rūm (“room, space”), from Proto-West Germanic rūm (“room”), from Proto-Germanic rūmą (“room”), from Proto-Indo-European (H)rewH- (“to root; to rip, tear”), from Hrew- (“to tear out, open”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA