Word.ws English Dictionary

roach

UK/ɹəʊtʃ/US/ɹoʊt͡ʃ/

roach noun: any fish of species in the genus Rutilus, especially.

roach: any fish of species in the genus Rutilus, especially
Image: Retro Lenses, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

roach (plural roaches or roach)

  1. Any fish of species in the genus Rutilus, especially
  2. A common roach (Rutilus rutilus).
  3. Any member of the genus Hesperoleucus of California roaches.

Noun (2)

roach (plural roaches)

  1. (US) Synonym of cockroach (“type of insect”).
    Synonyms:
    cockroach
  2. (derogatory, slang) Synonym of cockroach (“as a term of abuse”).
    Synonyms:
    cockroach
  3. (US, slang) The butt of a marijuana cigarette.
  4. (US, slang) An entire marijuana cigarette, blunt, or joint.
    • In his half hour of free time between brooms it was Willie's custom to smoke his lunch in an alleyway. He'd take just half a roach, only enough to make him feel a new day was starting, no more no less.1957, Alfred Maund, The Big Boxcar, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 106
  5. (UK, slang) The filter of a rolled cigarette or joint, made from card or paper (often of the cigarette paper packet itself).
    • Last toke is the yellowing fabric of the roach, containing the stuff that is less than tobacco.2000, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, London: Penguin Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 292

Verb (1)

roach (third-person singular simple present roaches, present participle roaching, simple past and past participle roached)

  1. Synonym of roach out.
    • Yamato roached on his best friend.2025 February 7, Bravado, Blizzard Forums
    • I stand by it being a horrible call, but Yamdef getting called out for roaching, there’s definitely some irony going on there.2025 February 7, Skunkyboy, Blizzard Forums
    Synonyms:
    roach out

Noun (3)

roach (plural roaches)

  1. Sail material that forms a concave curve rather than straight leech (aft edge) of a sail to increase the sail area over that of a simple triangular sail.
  2. A haircut or a similar-looking kind of headdress worn by some of the indigenous peoples of North America, often red.

Verb (2)

roach (third-person singular simple present roaches, present participle roaching, simple past and past participle roached)

  1. (transitive) To cut or shave off the mane of a horse so that the remaining hair stands up on the neck.
  2. (broadly, transitive) To cut a person's hair so that it stands straight up.

Noun (4)

roach (plural roaches)

  1. (UK, obsolete) A bed or stratum of some mineral.
    • After long Working of this Coal, it was found upon the rising Grounds, that there lay another Roach of Coal, at the Depth of 14 Yards under it1749, Rog. Mostyn, “Mineralogy”, in Philosophical Transactions and Collections to the End of the Year, volume II, London: Royal Society, →OCLC, page 379
  2. (UK, regional) Gritty or coarse rock; especially Portland stone or similar limestone.
    • The roach, both of the top and bottom beds, is always imperceptibly incorporated with the freestone, which is invariable situated beneath it.1841, C.H. Smith, “Lithology; or Observations on Stone for Building”, in The Surveyor, Engineer, and Architect, →OCLC, page 13

Proper noun capitalized: Roach

Roach (countable and uncountable, plural Roachs or Roaches)

  1. A surname from Anglo-Norman
  2. A surname from placenames
  3. A river in Essex, England, which is a stream before becoming a tidal river and joining the River Crouch; in full, the River Roach.
  4. (alternative) Alternative spelling of Roch, the River Roch or Roach, A river in Greater Manchester, England. Roach appears to be mainly an older spelling.
    • A Bacup to Manchester Victoria via Heywood diesel multiple-unit crossing the River Roach at Heap Bridge, Bury on November 4, 1960.1964 October, “North-Western Line Multiple-Unit Services”, in Modern Railways, page 252, photo caption
  5. A short river in Piscataquis County, Maine, which flows into Moosehead Lake.
  6. A short river in Virginia, a tributary of the Rivanna River.
  7. An unincorporated community in Camden County, Missouri.
  8. A ghost town in Clark County, Nevada.
  9. An unincorporated community in Cabell County, West Virginia.

roach meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu

roach in Hindi

रोच

roach in Tamil

ரோச் செய்ய

roach in Marathi

रोच

roach in Telugu

రోచ్ చేయడానికి, రోచ్ చెయ్యడానికి
More languagesFewer languages
roach in Kannada
ರೋಚ್ ಮಾಡಲು

Examples of roach in a sentence

  • Give me a drag on that roach!
  • She splatted the roach with her shoe.
  • Raid lead says to stay in and finish the boss, Yamdef roaches out instead.

All 25 example sentences with roach

Synonyms of roach

Forms of roach

Noun
pluralroaches
pluralroach
Verb
third-person singular presentroaches
present participleroaching
past participleroached
pastroached
Proper noun
pluralRoachs
pluralRoaches

Plural of roach: roaches or roach

Origin of roach

From Middle English roche, from Old French roche, from Middle Low German roche, ruche (“ray (fish)”), from Old Saxon *rūh, possibly from Proto-Germanic *rūhaz (“rough”). Cognate with Old English ruhha ("a ray"; > Middle English rouhe, rohȝe), German Rochen (“ray (fish)”).

Back-formation from cockroach, as if it were a compound. Marijuana-related meanings by similarity of appearance of the butt, attested since the 1930s.

Apparently from extended or figurative use of roach (“Cyprinidae”), above. Compare the adjective roached (“styled so that the mane stands up from the neck”).

Words formed from roach

Phrases with roach

Words that rhyme with roach

Questions about roach

What does roach mean?
Roach means any fish of species in the genus Rutilus, especially.
What is roach in Hindi?
Roach in Hindi is रोच. See Roach meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is roach?
Roach can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce roach?
Roach is pronounced /ɹəʊtʃ/ (UK).
What is the plural of roach?
The plural of roach is roaches.

Words near roach in the dictionary

  1. ro-ros
  2. ro.
  3. RO5
  4. Roa
  5. Roa Island
  6. roach
  7. roach bomb
  8. roach bombs
  9. roach clip
  10. roach clips
  11. roach coach

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roach (page history and authors); Roach (page history and authors); roach (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roach (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roach (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roach (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); roach (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-roach.ogg.

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