ROVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does rove mean? 

• ROVE (verb)
  The verb ROVE has 1 sense:

1. move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment

  Familiarity information: ROVE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ROVE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they rove    ... he / she / it roves   
Past simple: roved   
Past participle: roved   
-ing form: roving   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

cast; drift; ramble; range; roam; roll; rove; stray; swan; tramp; vagabond; wander

Context example:

They rolled from town to town

Hypernyms (to "rove" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Verb group:

drift; err; stray (wander from a direct course or at random)

wander (go via an indirect route or at no set pace)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "rove"):

maunder (wander aimlessly)

gad; gallivant; jazz around (wander aimlessly in search of pleasure)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence examples:

They rove the countryside
They rove in the countryside

Derivation:

roving (travelling about without any clear destination)

 Context examples 

I'm roving about so, it's impossible to be regular, you know.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Right easy were the Montacutes of their Castle of Twynham, and little had they to dread from roving galley or French squadron, while Lady Mary Loring had the ordering of it.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said, as she looked down at me; "a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I suppose?"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Thus she went roving on through the wide world, and looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor took any rest, for seven years.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Wolf Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his shoulders.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Levers and purchases fascinated him, and his mind roved backward to hand-spikes and blocks and tackles at sea.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Where sharks rove seagrass beds, dugongs and other shark prey species steer clear.

(Sharks, the seagrass protectors, National Science Foundation)

Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:—"If I were not sure already, I would know from them."

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Did they walk by the beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shellfish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Shall I ever recall that street of Canterbury on a market-day, without recalling him, as he walked back with us; expressing, in the hardy roving manner he assumed, the unsettled habits of a temporary sojourner in the land; and looking at the bullocks, as they came by, with the eye of an Australian farmer!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)