Word.ws English Dictionary

chroot

/t͡ʃɹuːt/

chroot verb: to change the apparent root directory for a running process, affecting whether or not it can access certain files etc.

Verb

chroot (third-person singular simple present chroots, present participle chrooting, simple past and past participle chrooted)

  1. (Unix) To change the apparent root directory for a running process, affecting whether or not it can access certain files etc.
    • Running a server in a chrooted environment greatly enhances overall system security on a Unix system.2004, Jeremy D. Zawodny, Derek J. Balling, High Performance MySQL: Optimization, Backups, Replication, Load Balancing & More, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 235

Forms of chroot

third-person singular presentchroots
present participlechrooting
past participlechrooted
pastchrooted

Origin of chroot

From the name of the Unix command, short for “change root”.

Questions about chroot

What does chroot mean?
Chroot means to change the apparent root directory for a running process, affecting whether or not it can access certain files etc.
What part of speech is chroot?
Chroot is a verb.
How do you pronounce chroot?
Chroot is pronounced /t͡ʃɹuːt/.
What is the past tense of chroot?
The past tense of chroot is chrooted.

Words near chroot in the dictionary

  1. chrony
  2. chroococcaceous
  3. chroococcoid
  4. chroococcoids
  5. chroolepoid
  6. chroot
  7. chrooted
  8. chrooting
  9. chroots
  10. CHROs
  11. Chrostowski

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chroot (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “chroot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chroot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.