Word.ws English Dictionary

roust

/ɹaʊst/

roust verb: to rout out of bed; to rouse.

Verb

roust (third-person singular simple present rousts, present participle rousting, simple past and past participle rousted)

  1. (transitive) to rout out of bed; to rouse.
    • "Why didn't you roust me out?" / "Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you." / "Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be along in a minute."1884, Mark Twain, chapter VII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    • Yesterday morn at 6:30 they rousted me up & gave me 2 shots in the behind.1977-1980, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
    Synonyms:
    bring round
  2. (informal, transitive) To harass, to treat in a rough way.
    • My client is an ex-convict. He's been constantly harassed by the police... subjected to extreme mental cruelty and public degradation. He's even been denied an adequate place to live! To be very blunt, gentlemen, my client has been thoroughly rousted.1962, 00:28:45 from the start, in Cape Fear
  3. (slang, transitive) To arrest.
    Synonyms:
    collar, nick, pinch
  4. (transitive) To drive strongly.

Noun

roust (plural rousts)

  1. A strong tide or current, especially in a narrow channel.
    • At the north point of this island, called Ska, goes a very rapid current; like the Roust of Sumburghead1786, Thomas Gifford, An Historical Description of the Zetland Islands

Synonyms of roust

All synonyms of roust

Forms of roust

Verb
third-person singular presentrousts
present participlerousting
past participlerousted
pastrousted
Noun
pluralrousts
alternative formroost
alternative formrost

Origin of roust

1650s, variant of rouse, possibly influenced by rout.

From Old Norse rǫst (“current, stream in the sea”).

Words formed from roust

Words that rhyme with roust

Questions about roust

What does roust mean?
Roust means to rout out of bed; to rouse.
What part of speech is roust?
Roust can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce roust?
Roust is pronounced /ɹaʊst/.
What is the past tense of roust?
The past tense of roust is rousted.

Words near roust in the dictionary

  1. Roussin
  2. Roussins
  3. Roussy
  4. Roussy-Lévy areflexic dystasia
  5. Roussy-Lévy syndrome
  6. roust
  7. roustabout
  8. roustabouted
  9. roustabouting
  10. roustabouts
  11. rousted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roust (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-au-roust.ogg.

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