roving
/ˈɹoʊvɪŋ/
roving adjective: moving about; having no fixed or permanent abode; travelling from place to place. Also the present participle and gerund of rove.
Adjective
roving (comparative more roving, superlative most roving)
- Moving about; having no fixed or permanent abode; travelling from place to place.
- The Northern Territory was dear to us both, and the fever for a roving life had not yet worn off, but some time elapsed before we could quite make up our minds whether to try our fortunes in Port Darwin again or not.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 139
- Of the eyes or gaze, inspecting all over; not staying fixed on one subject.
- His roving eyes never focused on anything specific.
- It could complicate things for our little household. Particularly when Larry’s roving eye is factored in.1989, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: Visible Breath, Dark Horse Books
Noun
roving (countable and uncountable, plural rovings)
- A long and narrow bundle of fibre, usually used to spin woollen yarn or in felting.
- Mr. J. W. Strange, of Taunton, Mass., has invented an improved method of laying roving in cans.1847, editorial staff, “Improvement in Roving Cans”, in Scientific American, series 1, Volume 3, Issue 9, page 68
- The process of giving the first twist to yarn.
Also used as
roving is also the present participle and gerund of rove.
Examples of roving in a sentence
- Sound but more workaday fleeces are batched to make roving and yarn.
- Falcons circling overhead have two eyes, just like hammerhead sharks roving through the ocean.
- We're just a-a classic roving gang.” “Look, I know you're Starfleet.
Synonyms of roving
Forms of roving
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more roving |
| superlative | most roving |
| Noun | |
| plural | rovings |
Origin of roving
From rove + -ing.
From rove (“sliver of wool or cotton”), late 17th century, possibly from obsolete Middle English rove(n) (“to draw out, pull off”), itself a dialectal variant of rive (“to tear, split”).
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Words formed from roving
- roving bridge
- roving editor
- roving eye
- rovingly
- rovingness
- roving plate
- roving reel
- roving reporter
- roving sailor
Phrases with roving
Questions about roving
- What does roving mean?
- Roving means moving about; having no fixed or permanent abode; travelling from place to place.
- What part of speech is roving?
- Roving can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce roving?
- Roving is pronounced /ˈɹoʊvɪŋ/ (US).
Words near roving in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: roving (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)-Sapaa-roving.wav.
Cite this entry: “roving.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roving. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.