Word.ws English Dictionary

rove

/ɹəʊv/US/ɹoʊv/

rove verb: to shoot with arrows (at). Also the simple past of rive.

Verb

rove (third-person singular simple present roves, present participle roving, simple past and past participle roved)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To shoot with arrows (at).
    • And thou […] that with thy cruell dart / At that good knight so cunningly didst roue […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  2. (intransitive) To roam, or wander about at random, especially over a wide area.
    • Now that he was in his prime, there was no simian in all the mighty forest through which he roved that dared contest his right to rule, nor did the other and larger animals molest him.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 1, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert]...
    • And a rovin’, a rovin’, a rovin’ I'll go / For a pair of brown eyes1985, Shane MacGowan, “A Pair of Brown Eyes”, in Rum Sodomy & the Lash, performed by The Pogues
  3. (transitive) To roam or wander through.
    • Roving the field, I chanced / A goodly tree far distant to behold.1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC...
    • The rein-deer, which in Scandinavia can scarcely exist to the south of the sixty-fifth parallel, descends, in consequence of the greater coldness of the climate, to the fiftieth degree, in Chinese Tartary, and often roves into a country of more southern latitude than any part of England.1832, Charles Lyell, chapter VI, in Principles of Geology: Being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth's Surface, by Reference to Causes Now in Operation, volume II, London: John...
  4. (transitive) To card wool or other fibres.
    • Although both [flax and wool] must be roved and spun upon similar principles, each requires peculiar modifications in its machinery.1835, Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufacturers
  5. To twist slightly; to bring together, as slivers of wool or cotton, and twist slightly before spinning.
  6. To draw through an eye or aperture.
  7. To plough into ridges by turning the earth of two furrows together.
  8. To practice robbery on the seas; to voyage about on the seas as a pirate.
    • pirates, roving up and downe the sea1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, […], London: […] George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, […], →OCLC

Noun

rove (plural roves)

  1. A copper washer upon which the end of a nail is clinched in boatbuilding.
  2. A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and lightly twisted, preparatory to further processing; a roving.
  3. The act of wandering; a ramble.
    • In thy nocturnal rove one moment halt.1745, [Edward Young], “Night the Ninth and Last. The Consolation. Containing, among Other Things, I. A Moral Survey of the Nocturnal Heavens. II. A Night-Address to the Deity. […]”, in The Complaint...

Proper noun capitalized: Rove

Rove

  1. A surname

Also used as

rove is also the simple past of rive.

rove is also the simple past of reeve.

Forms of rove

Verb
third-person singular presentroves
present participleroving
past participleroved
pastroved
Noun
pluralroves

Past tense of rove: roved

Origin of rove

Probably from Middle English *roven, a Midlands variant of Northern Middle English raven (“to wander”), from Old Norse ráfa (“to rove; stray about”). Cognate with Icelandic ráfa (“to wander”), Scots rave (“to wander; stray; roam”).

Inflected forms.

Words formed from rove

Phrases with rove

Words that rhyme with rove

41 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rove

What does rove mean?
Rove means to shoot with arrows (at).
What part of speech is rove?
Rove can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce rove?
Rove is pronounced /ɹəʊv/ (UK).
What is the past tense of rove?
The past tense of rove is roved.

Words near rove in the dictionary

  1. roués
  2. rov
  3. roval
  4. rovals
  5. Rovaniemi
  6. rove
  7. rove beetle
  8. rove beetles
  9. roved
  10. Roveian
  11. rovelizumab

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rove (page history and authors); Rove (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rove.wav.

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