Word.ws English Dictionary

routle

routle is the alternative form of rootle.

Meaning of rootle

Verb

rootle (third-person singular simple present rootles, present participle rootling, simple past and past participle rootled)

  1. to dig into the ground, with the snout.
    • Once, presumably, this quadrangle with its smooth lawns, its massive buildings, and the chapel itself was marsh too, where the grasses waved and the swine rootled.1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 11
  2. to search for something from a drawer, closet, etc.; to dig out.
    • 'There's a tin of cocoa in my study somewhere,' Perowne shouted after him. 'Rootle round till you find it, and take it up.'1908, Rudyard Kipling, Regulus

Forms of routle

third-person singular presentroutles
present participleroutling
past participleroutled
pastroutled

Questions about routle

What is routle the alternative form of?
Routle is the alternative form of rootle.

Words near routle in the dictionary

  1. routinize
  2. routinized
  3. routinizes
  4. routinizing
  5. routish
  6. routle
  7. routled
  8. Routledge
  9. routles
  10. Routley
  11. Routleys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: routle (page history and authors); rootle (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: “routle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/routle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.