roof

/ɹuːf//ɹuːf/

roof noun: the external covering at the top of a building.

Image: W.carter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

roof (plural roofs or (UK, uncommon) rooves)

The external covering at the top of a building.
- The roof was blown off by the tornado.
- 'Twas the house I'd seen the roof of from the beach.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
Synonyms:

rooftop, tect, thatch
The top external level of a building.
- Let's go up to the roof.
- When this old world starts getting me down
  And people are just too much for me to face,
  I climb way up to the top of the stairs
  And all my cares just drift right into space
  On the roof, it's peaceful as can be
  And there, the world below can't bother me...1962, Gerry Goffin et al., “Up on the Roof”
The upper part of a cavity.
- The palate is the roof of the mouth.
- As Bent pulled away to the far post, Agbonlahor opted to go it alone, motoring past Gary Caldwell before unleashing a shot into the roof of the net.2011 October 1, John Sinnott, “Aston Villa 2-0 Wigan”, in BBC Sport
Synonyms:

ceiling
The surface or bed of rock immediately overlying a bed of coal or a flat vein.
An overhanging rock wall.
(archaic, slang) A hat.
- Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that he had a hat in his hat-box; which was accordingly at once extracted from the hind-boot, and Tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend called it.1857, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days

Verb

roof (third-person singular simple present roofs, present participle roofing, simple past and past participle roofed)

(transitive) To cover or furnish with a roof.
- A trench about ten feet deep was dug in the ground and roofed over with sticks and earth so as to form a dark tunnel.1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 11, page 264
To traverse buildings by walking or climbing across their roofs.
(slang, transitive) To put into prison, to bird.
- Did you see them, David? I mean, did you see them looking at me? I-I'm walking out of the court, and everybody was practically – yeah, they were gawking. […] I mean, Noah roofed me, I proved it, end of story.1998 March 4, “Law and Disorder”, in Beverly Hills, 90210, season 08, episode 22
- I’m open, hype off the chronic I was smoking, feeling zooted
  That Brooklyn shit got me stupid
  I’m loose, kid – that’s what the overproof did
  What the ruck you looking at, son? You’ll get roofed, kid!2000 January 1, “Stupid”, in Mr. Metaphor (lyrics), The Will Tell Compilation Vol. 1: Thats Right Inc., performed by Word A' Mouth, Block McCloud, and Mr. Metaphor
(transitive) To shelter as if under a roof.
- They reached him: the pieces of rock had roofed him over—he was without injury or scratch.1865, Thomas Greenbury, Pleasant Rambles Over Moors, Mountains, Mines, and Waterfalls
- It built him softly round, it roofed him warmly over, it rested, all so firm, on selection.1903 September 28, Henry James, The Ambassadors, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Roof

Roof

A Chinese constellation located near Aquarius and Pegasus, one of the 28 lunar mansions and part of the larger Black Turtle.

Synonyms:

Rooftop

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Roof

Roof

A surname.

roof meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

roof in Hindi

the cover at the top of a building: छत chat

roof in Tamil

the cover at the top of a building: கூரை kūrai

roof in Marathi

the cover at the top of a building: छत chat

roof in Urdu

the cover at the top of a building: چَھت chat

More languagesFewer languages

roof in Bengali: ছাদ chad
roof in Telugu: కప్పు kappu
roof in Malayalam: മേൽക്കൂര mēlkkūra
roof in Kannada: ಛಾವಣಿಯ chāvaṇiya
roof in Punjabi: ਛੱਤ chatta
roof in Gujarati: છત chat
roof in Odia: ଛାତ chāta, ପକା pakā
roof in Sanskrit: छदि chadi
roof in Sinhala: ඡදන chadana
roof in Assamese: ছাদ sad
roof in Nepali: छाना chānā
roof in Pashto: بام bām
roof in Tagalog: atip, bubong
roof in Arabic: سَقْف saqf, سَطْح saṭḥ
roof in Malay: atap, bumbung
roof in Indonesian: atap
roof in Thai: หลังคา lǎng-kaa
roof in Vietnamese: mái nhà, mái, trần
roof in Myanmar: အမိုး a.mui:

Examples of roof in a sentence

Let's get a quotation for repairing the roof before we decide whether it's worth doing.
The roof was made of tin, which had been cut with tin snips.
I don't think it worth complaining about the leak in the roof, is it?

All 40 example sentences with roof

Synonyms of roof

Forms of roof

Noun
plural	roofs
plural UK uncommon	rooves
alternative form (obsolete)	roofe
Verb
third-person singular present	roofs
present participle	roofing
past participle	roofed
past	roofed

Past tense of roof: roofed

Plural of roof: roofs

Origin of roof

From Middle English rhof, rof, roof, rooff, rufe, ruffe, from Old English hrōf (“roof; heaven, sky”), from Proto-West Germanic *hrōf, from Proto-Germanic *hrōfą (“roof”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱrapo- (“roof”), from *krāwə- (“to cover, heap”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch roef (“cabin on a boat”), Faroese rógv (“roof”); also Czech, Polish, and Slovene strop (“ceiling”), Russian строп (strop, “attic, loft, roof”), Serbo-Croatian стро̏п, strȍp (“ceiling”).

From Middle English rofen, roven (“to roof”), from the noun (see above).

Calque of Mandarin 危宿 (Wēixiù).

Phrases with roof

57 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with roof

Questions about roof

What does roof mean?: Roof means the external covering at the top of a building.
What is roof in Hindi?: Roof in Hindi is छत (chat). See Roof meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is roof?: Roof can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce roof?: Roof is pronounced /ɹuːf/.
What is the plural of roof?: The plural of roof is roofs.

Words near roof in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: roof (page history and authors); Roof (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-roof.ogg, en-us-roof.ogg, En-ca-roof.ogg.

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