Other forms: roosting, roosts, roosted
To roost is to settle somewhere for the night, as birds do. Birds roosting, come home to roost, a starling roost.
Communal roosts can be enormous — starlings gather in hundreds of thousands and perform the murmuration before settling. Roosting together keeps birds warm and shares information about food. Chickens roost on a perch by instinct. Note rule the roost, meaning to be in charge, which was once rule the roast; and chickens coming home to roost, meaning consequences arriving.
1verbroostTo settle somewhere for the night, as birds do.
“Every evening, hundreds of crows roost in the tall trees behind the church.”
2nounplaceThe place where birds settle.
“Bats leave their roost in the old barn at dusk.”
roost is a settling for the night.
Old English hrost meant the wooden framework of a roof, and then the perch birds sat on. Dutch roest is the same word.
Proto-Germanic
*hrōstaz — wooden framework; grill
Proto-West Germanic
*hrōst
Old English
hrōst — wooden framework of a roof; roost
Middle English
roste — chicken's roost; perch
English, today
roost
From Middle English roste (“chicken's roost; perch”), from Old English hrōst (“wooden framework of a roof; roost”), from Proto-West Germanic hrōst, from Proto-Germanic hrōstaz (“wooden framework; grill”); see raustijan. Cognate with Dutch roest (“roost”), German Low German Rust (“roost”), German Rost (“grate; gridiron; grill”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA