Root

·noun The lowest place, position, or part.

II. Root ·vi To be firmly fixed; to be established.

III. Root ·noun The time which to reckon in making calculations.

IV. Root ·vi To turn up the earth with the snout, as swine.

V. Root ·noun An ancestor or progenitor; and hence, an early race; a stem.

VI. Root ·noun The cause or occasion by which anything is brought about; the source.

VII. Root ·vt To turn up or to dig out with the snout; as, the swine roots the earth.

VIII. Root ·vi To fix the root; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.

IX. Root ·vi Hence, to seek for favor or advancement by low arts or groveling servility; to fawn servilely.

X. Root ·noun The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.

XI. Root ·vt To tear up by the root; to Eradicate; to Extirpate;

— with up, out, or away.

XII. Root ·noun An edible or esculent root, especially of such plants as produce a single root, as the beet, carrot, ·etc.; as, the root crop.

XIII. Root ·noun The underground portion of a plant, whether a true root or a tuber, a bulb or rootstock, as in the potato, the onion, or the sweet flag.

XIV. Root ·noun A primitive form of speech; one of the earliest terms employed in language; a word from which other words are formed; a radix, or radical.

XV. Root ·noun That factor of a quantity which when multiplied into itself will produce that quantity; thus, 3 is a root of 9, because 3 multiplied into itself produces 9; 3 is the cube root of 27.

XVI. Root ·noun That which resembles a root in position or function, ·esp. as a source of nourishment or support; that from which anything proceeds as if by growth or development; as, the root of a tooth, a nail, a cancer, and the like.

XVII. Root ·vt To plant and fix deeply in the earth, or as in the earth; to implant firmly; hence, to make deep or radical; to Establish;

— used chiefly in the participle; as, rooted trees or forests; rooted dislike.

XVIII. Root ·add. ·vi To shout for, or otherwise noisly applaud or encourage, a contestant, as in sports; hence, to wish earnestly for the success of some one or the happening of some event, with the superstitious notion that this action may have efficacy;

— usually with for; as, the crowd rooted for the home team.

XIX. Root ·noun The descending, and commonly branching, axis of a plant, increasing in length by growth at its extremity only, not divided into joints, leafless and without buds, and having for its offices to fix the plant in the earth, to supply it with moisture and soluble matters, and sometimes to serve as a reservoir of nutriment for future growth. A true root, however, may never reach the ground, but may be attached to a wall, ·etc., as in the ivy, or may hang loosely in the air, as in some epiphytic orchids.