Roving
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A long and narrow bundle of fibre, usually used to spin woollen yarn or in felting. countable, uncountable
- 2 travelling about without any clear destination wordnet
- 3 The process of giving the first twist to yarn. countable, uncountable
- 1 present participle and gerund of rove form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 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."
- 2 Of the eyes or gaze, inspecting all over; not staying fixed on one subject.
"His roving eyes never focused on anything specific."
- 1 migratory wordnet
Example
More examples""Jack, whenever there is no good video to watch, no good movie to see in the theatre, or no good book or magazine to read, I opt for Imaginary Visualization. I invent a setting in my mind and stay there for a while." "Sam, can you give me an example?" "It might be a calming teahouse in orbit around a roving gas giant planet, or something totally different.""
Etymology
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.