rope
UK/ɹəʊp//ɹoʊp/
rope noun: thick strings, yarn, monofilaments, metal wires, or strands of other cordage that are twisted together to form a stronger line.
Noun (1)
rope (countable and uncountable, plural ropes)
- Thick strings, yarn, monofilaments, metal wires, or strands of other cordage that are twisted together to form a stronger line.
- Nylon rope is usually stronger than similar rope made of plant fibers.
- An individual length of such material.
- The swinging bridge is constructed of 40 logs and 30 ropes.
- All at once, let’s heave on the rope!
- A cohesive strand of something.
- The duchess wore a rope of pearls to the soirée.
- Jimmy began to scream and ropes of spit shot from his mouth.2003, Dennis Lehane, Mystic River, →ISBN, page 138
- A continuous stream.
- The principle of any such device should be to pull on the vessel by a rope of water passing in at the bow and out at the stern.1852, John Bourne, A Treatise on the Screw Propeller: With Various Suggestions of Improvement, page 38
- A hard line drive.
- He hit a rope past third and into the corner.
- A long thin segment of soft clay, either extruded or formed by hand.
- A data structure resembling a string, using a concatenation tree in which each leaf represents a character.
- Synonyms:
- cord
- A kind of chaff (material dropped to interfere with radar) consisting of foil strips with paper chutes attached.
- A unit of distance equivalent to the distance covered in six months by a god flying at ten million miles per second.
- The central strip of the loka, the Middle World, represents its smallest area, being only one rope wide and one hundred thousand leagues high, […]2001, “Review of Metaphysical Teaching”, in Nagendra Kr. Singh, editor, Encyclopaedia of Jainism, →ISBN, page 7522
- Synonyms:
- rajju, infinitude
- A necklace of at least one meter in length.
- Cordage of at least one inch in diameter, or a length of such cordage.
- A unit of length equal to twenty feet.
Verb
rope (third-person singular simple present ropes, present participle roping, simple past and past participle roped)
- To tie (something) with rope.
- The robber roped the victims.
- To throw a rope (or something similar, e.g. a lasso, cable, wire, etc.) around (something).
- The cowboy roped the calf.
- Synonyms:
- lasso
- To climb by means of a rope or ropes.
- We roped down to the platform selected for the bivouac; set up our bags and brewed a reasonable meal.1984, G. F. Dutton, The Ridiculous Mountains, page 153
- To be formed into rope; to draw out or extend into a filament or thread.
- Let us not hang like roping icicles / Upon our houses' thatch.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- To pull or restrain (the horse one is riding) to prevent it from winning a race.
- Others, a shade more advanced, have been known to bribe a jockey to "hold," "rope" a horse, or a stableman to poison or stupefy him.1882, Edwin Sharpe Grew, Baden Fletcher Smyth Baden-Powell, Arthur Cowper Ranyard, Knowledge...: A Monthly Record of Science (volume 1, page 132)
- To commit suicide, particularly by hanging.
- My life is a mess; I might as well rope.
- In figure 71, the poster Brahcel notes that he “almost roped” because he could not find the community […]2019, Julia Rose DeCook, anonymous quotee, “Curating the Future: The Sustainability Practices of Online Hate Groups”, in Michigan State University, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2021, page 153
- Synonyms:
- ropemaxx
Noun (2)
rope (plural ropes)
- The small intestines.
- the ropes of birds
rope meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
rope in Hindi
- thick, strong string
- डोरी ḍorī, रस्सी rassī
rope in Tamil
- thick, strong string
- கயிறு kayiṟu
rope in Marathi
- thick, strong string
- दोरी dorī
rope in Urdu
- thick, strong string
- رَسّی rassī, ڈوری ḍorī, رَسَن rasan
More languagesFewer languages
- rope in Bengali
- দড়ি doṛi, রশি rośi
- rope in Telugu
- తాడు tāḍu, మోకు mōku
- rope in Malayalam
- വടം vaṭaṁ
- rope in Kannada
- ಹಗ್ಗ hagga
- rope in Punjabi
- ਰੱਸਾ rassā
- rope in Gujarati
- દોરડું dorḍũ
- rope in Odia
- ଦଉଡି dauḍi
- rope in Sanskrit
- रज्जु rajju
- rope in Sinhala
- කඹය kaᵐbaya
- rope in Assamese
- জৰী zori, ৰছী rosi, ডোৰ dür
- rope in Nepali
- डोरी ḍorī
- rope in Pashto
- پړی pəṛay
- rope in Tagalog
- tali
- rope in Arabic
- حَبْل ḥabl
- rope in Malay
- tali
- rope in Indonesian
- tali
- rope in Thai
- เชือก chʉ̂ʉak
- rope in Vietnamese
- dây
- rope in Myanmar
- ကြိုး krui:, လွန် lwan
Examples of rope in a sentence
- ToxicAlcoholSyndrome explains that his, “dreams are all really depressing and vivid, so… I’m constantly in a bad mood and know in the back of my brain, I need to rope.”2020 April 26, Joshua A. Segalewitz, “'You Don't Understand... It's Not About Virginity': Sexual Markets, Identity Construction, and...
- Another man wrote that the only reason he hasn't “roped” (incel terminology for death by suicide) is he didn't want to ruin his family's Christmas.2021, Laura Bates, From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All, unnumbered page:
Synonyms of rope
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of rope
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | ropes |
| alternative form (obsolete) | roap |
| alternative form (obsolete) | roape |
| alternative form (dialectal) | rop |
| alternative form (dialectal) | rap |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | ropes |
| present participle | roping |
| past participle | roped |
| past | roped |
Origin of rope
From Middle English rop, rope, from Old English rāp (“rope, cord, cable”), from Proto-West Germanic *raip, from Proto-Germanic *raipaz, *raipą (“rope, cord, band, ringlet”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁roypnós (“strap, band, rope”), from *h₁reyp- (“to peel off, tear; border, edge, strip”). Cognates Cognate with Scots rape, raip (“rope”), Saterland Frisian Roop (“rope”), West Frisian reap (“rope, cord”), Dutch roop, reep (“rope, cord, ring, strip, bar”), German Low German Reep (“rope”), German Reif (“ring, hoop”), Norwegian Bokmål and Swedish rep (“rope”), Faroese and Norwegian Nynorsk reip (“rope”), Danish reb (“rope”), Icelandic reipi (“rope”), Albanian rrip (“belt, rope”).
From Middle English ropen, rope (“to form ropes”), from rop (“rope”); see above.
From Middle English rop (“gut, intestine”), from Old English rop, ropp; compare Middle Dutch rop, roppe (“fish guts”). The modern pronunciation results from phonological assimilation to Etymology 1.
Words formed from rope
- ropable
- ropeable
- rope-a-dope
- roped
- rope in
- rope into
- rope off
- roper
- rope together
- battle rope
- bell rope
- boatrope
- bolt rope
- bolt-rope
- breastrope
- bull rope
- bungee rope
- bungy rope
- buoy rope
- bushrope
- cable-laid rope
- catch rope
- catch-rope
- Chinese jump rope
- Chinese ropes
- coyote's rope
- crack-rope
- dance on a rope
- day of the rope
- dead man's rope
- dead-rope
- devil's rope
- dog rope
- drag-rope
- drag rope
- fast rope
- flat rope
- footrope
- frozen rope
- gift rope
- give one enough rope
- give someone enough rope
- give someone enough rope and they'll hang themself
- glass-rope
- goat rope
- goat-rope
- guest rope
- guide rope
- guy rope
- handrope
- hawser-laid rope
- headrope
- hide-rope
- hobblerope
- hobble rope
- hobble-rope
- Indian rope trick
- jump rope
- know the ropes
- laid rope
Phrases with rope
- rope up
- leg rope
- rope bed
- rope out
- top rope
- tow rope
- nope rope
- push rope
- rope burn
- rope dart
- rope kiss
- rope line
90 more phrasesFewer phrases
- rope pump
- rope wall
- rope worm
- rope yarn
- skip rope
- wine rope
- wire rope
- yard rope
- jumps rope
- ridge rope
- rope bunny
- rope burns
- rope clamp
- rope dance
- rope darts
- rope grass
- rope lines
- rope pumps
- rope swing
- rope trick
- rope twist
- rope walls
- rope winch
- rope worms
- rope yarns
- skips rope
- tight rope
- trail rope
- jumped rope
- Manila rope
- picket rope
- prayer rope
- pushed rope
- pushes rope
- rope bridge
- rope clamps
- rope dancer
- rope dances
- rope kisses
- rope ladder
- rope porter
- rope runner
- rope stitch
- rope swings
- rope tricks
- rope twists
- shot a rope
- jumping rope
- pushing rope
- rope bridges
- rope bunnies
- rope dancers
- rope ladders
- rope machine
- rope of sand
- rope porters
- rope pulling
- rope railway
- rope runners
- rope tornado
- rope winches
- shoot a rope
- skipped rope
- stretch rope
- rope drilling
- rope machines
- rope railways
- rope stitches
- shoots a rope
- skipping rope
- twopenny rope
- piss up a rope
- rope and choke
- rope tornadoes
- stretched rope
- stretches rope
- rope and chokes
- shooting a rope
- stretching rope
- on the high rope
- Rope Yarn Sunday
- Indian rope tricks
- money for old rope
- gave one enough rope
- throw someone a rope
- given one enough rope
- gives one enough rope
- the end of one's rope
- giving one enough rope
- you'd complain if you were hung with a new rope
Words that rhyme with rope
Questions about rope
- What does rope mean?
- Rope means thick strings, yarn, monofilaments, metal wires, or strands of other cordage that are twisted together to form a stronger line.
- What is rope in Hindi?
- Rope in Hindi is डोरी (ḍorī), रस्सी (rassī). See Rope meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use rope in a sentence?
- ToxicAlcoholSyndrome explains that his, “dreams are all really depressing and vivid, so… I’m constantly in a bad mood and know in the back of my brain, I need to rope.”
- What part of speech is rope?
- Rope can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce rope?
- Rope is pronounced /ɹəʊp/ (UK).
- What is the plural of rope?
- The plural of rope is ropes.
Words near rope in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rope (page history and authors); വടം (Malayalam) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-rope.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rope.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rope. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.