Rootch
verb, slang ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of rutch (“slide”). alt-of, alternative
""Do you shuss or rootch here?" asks the patient. "We rootch here," says the chief operating room nurse. The patient rootched herself over on to the operating table. Patient says to nurse, "You must make sure that I'm asleep before they operate.""
- 2 Alternative form of rutch (“squirm, move around”). alt-of, alternative
""You must fight it all ofer the world. You must fight it right here, in your home. Your own Ku Klux Klan —" He broke off, his face working so that he could not continue. The Marine looked down at his fingers, rootched on the seat in discomfort."
- 3 To root or rummage around (in search of something). Pennsylvania, US, especially, informal
"Our model house-keeper minded closely her own business, never moving about or rootching around in what did not concern her. She was an other-guess character — an other-guess sort of person, as Goldsmith would have said."
Example
More examples""Do you shuss or rootch here?" asks the patient. "We rootch here," says the chief operating room nurse. The patient rootched herself over on to the operating table. Patient says to nurse, "You must make sure that I'm asleep before they operate.""
Etymology
See rutch.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.