Word.ws English Dictionary

rule the roast

rule the roast is the archaic form of rule the roost.

Meaning of rule the roost

Verb

rule the roost (third-person singular simple present rules the roost, present participle ruling the roost, simple past and past participle ruled the roost)

  1. (idiomatic) To be the controlling member(s) of a family, organization, or other group.
    • His was biding his time, and patiently looking forward to the days when he himself would sit authoritative at some board, and talk and direct, and rule the roost, while lesser stars sat round and obeyed.1857, Anthony Trollope, chapter 3, in Barchester Towers

Forms of rule the roast

third-person singular presentrules the roast
present participleruling the roast
past participleruled the roast
pastruled the roast

Questions about rule the roast

What is rule the roast the archaic form of?
Rule the roast is the archaic form of rule the roost.

Words near rule the roast in the dictionary

  1. rule on
  2. rule out
  3. rule set
  4. rule sets
  5. rule the day
  6. rule the roast
  7. rule the roost
  8. rule the school
  9. rule utilitarianism
  10. rule with a rod of iron
  11. rule-based

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rule the roast (page history and authors); rule the roost (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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