Roof

//ɹuːf// name, noun, verb, slang

name, noun, verb, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The external covering at the top of a building.

    "The roof was blown off by the tornado."

  2. 2
    a protective covering that covers or forms the top of a building wordnet
  3. 3
    The top external level of a building.

    "Let's go up to the roof."

  4. 4
    protective covering on top of a motor vehicle wordnet
  5. 5
    The upper part of a cavity.

    "The palate is the roof of the mouth."

Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    an upper limit on what is allowed wordnet
  2. 7
    The surface or bed of rock immediately overlying a bed of coal or a flat vein.
  3. 8
    the inner top surface of a covered area or hollow space wordnet
  4. 9
    An overhanging rock wall.
  5. 10
    A hat. archaic, slang

    "Tom thought his cap a very knowing affair, but confessed that he had a hat in his hat-box; which was accordingly at once extracted from the hind-boot, and Tom equipped in his go-to-meeting roof, as his new friend called it."

Verb
  1. 1
    To cover or furnish with a roof. transitive

    "A trench about ten feet deep was dug in the ground and roofed over with sticks and earth so as to form a dark tunnel."

  2. 2
    provide a building with a roof; cover a building with a roof wordnet
  3. 3
    To traverse buildings by walking or climbing across their roofs.
  4. 4
    To put into prison, to bird. slang, transitive

    "Did you see them, David? I mean, did you see them looking at me? I-I'm walking out of the court, and everybody was practically – yeah, they were gawking. […] I mean, Noah roofed me, I proved it, end of story."

  5. 5
    To shelter as if under a roof. transitive

    "They reached him: the pieces of rock had roofed him over—he was without injury or scratch."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A Chinese constellation located near Aquarius and Pegasus, one of the 28 lunar mansions and part of the larger Black Turtle.
  2. 2
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms
ceilingceilingrooftopabiding placeabodeaddress

Example

More examples

"We got our roof blown off in the gale."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English rof, from Old English hrōf (“roof, ceiling; top, summit; heaven, sky”), from Proto-Germanic *hrōfą (“roof”). Cognate with Scots ruif (“roof, ceiling”), Dutch roef (“cabin on a boat”), Icelandic hróf (“shed”), Irish cró (“pen, barn, cabin”), Proto-Slavic *stropъ (“roof, ceiling”). Compare Faroese rógv (“something high up”).

Etymology 2

From Middle English rofen, roven (“to roof”), from the noun (see above).

Etymology 3

Calque of Mandarin 危宿 (Wēixiù).

Etymology 4

* As an English surname, spelling variant of Rolfe. * As a German surname, from a personal name ultimately derived from Proto-West Germanic *hrōþi (“fame, glory, renown”); also Americanized from Ruff, itself shortened from Rudolf (and from the same root).

Related phrases

French roofHutton RoofM roofRoof of the WorldV roofbarrel roofblow the roof offbuilt-up roofburn the roofbutterfly roofcatslide roofcoach roof

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.