Word Confusion: Root vs Rout vs Route

Plural for the noun: roots
Gerund: rooting

Third person present verb: roots
Past tense or past participle: rooted
Present participle: rooting

Plural for the noun: routs
Gerund: routing

Third person present verb: routs
Past tense or past participle: routed
present participle: routing

Plural for the noun: routes
Gerund: routing

Third person present verb: routes
Past tense or past participle: routed
Present participle: routing

• The persistent underground part of a plant, especially when fleshy and enlarged and used as a vegetable
• Any plant grown for its edible root
• The embedded part of a bodily organ or structure such as a hair, tooth, or nail
• The part of a thing attaching it to a greater or more fundamental whole
• The end or base

The basic cause, source, or origin of something

• The essential substance or nature of something
• [Roots] Family, ethnic, or cultural origins, especially as the reasons for one’s long-standing emotional attachment to a place or community
• [As adjective roots] Denoting or relating to something, especially music, from a particular ethnic or cultural origin, especially a non-Western one
• [In biblical use] A scion
  • A descendant
• [Linguistics] A morpheme, not necessarily surviving as a word in itself, from which words have been made by the addition of prefixes or suffixes or by other modification
• [Music] The fundamental note of a chord

[Mathematics] A number or quantity that when multiplied by itself, typically a specified number of times, gives a specified number or quantity

• Short for square root, √
• A value of an unknown quantity satisfying a given equation
• [Computing; often as modifier] A user account with full and unrestricted access to a system

[In singular] An act of rooting ²

Verb, intransitive:
Cause a plant or cutting to grow roots ¹

• [Of a plant or cutting] Establish roots

[Of an animal] Turn up the ground with its snout in search of food ²

• Search unsystematically through an untidy mass or area
• Rummage

Verb, transitive:
Cause a plant or cutting to grow roots ¹

[Usually be rooted] Establish deeply and firmly

• [Be rooted in] Have as an origin or cause
• [Often as adjective rooted] Cause someone to stand immobile through fear or amazement
• [Computing] Gain access to the root account of a smartphone or computer

[Of an animal] Turn up the ground with its snout in search of food ²

• [Root something out] Find or extract something by rummaging

• A decisive or overwhelming defeat

[Law; dated] An assembly of people who have made a move toward committing an illegal act that would constitute an offense of riot ²

• [Archaic] A disorderly or tumultuous crowd of people
• A noisy rabble

[British; archaic] A large evening party or reception

Verb, intransitive:
To root ⁴

To poke, search, or rummage

[Archaic] To snore

Verb, transitive:
Defeat and cause to retreat in disorder ¹

[Usually followed by out] To force or drive out

Cut a groove, or any pattern not extending to the edges, in a wooden or metal surface ³

Another term for root ², ⁴

• Find someone or something or force them from a place

• The line of a road, path, railroad, etc.
• [North American] A circuit traveled in delivering, selling, or collecting goods
• A method or process leading to a specified result

Verb, transitive:
Send or direct along a specified course

Those tree roots can be quite invasive.

We’ve got a good crop of turnips and carrots this year.

Her hair was fairer at the roots.

Love of money is the root of all evil.

Jealousy was at the root of it.

Her stupidity was the root cause of the problem.

There were matters at the heart and root of existence.

It’s always nice to return to my roots.

“The increasing influence of the Rastafari movement after the visit of Haile Selassie to Jamaica in 1966 played a major part in the development of roots reggae” (Roots).

“And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof” (The Revelation of St John the Divine 5:5).

Many European words stem from this linguistic root.

Torture is the root form of the word torturous.

“In inverted triads, the root is directly above the interval of a fourth, in inverted sevenths, it is directly above the interval of a second (Root).

The roots of the equation differ by an integer.

Make sure that these files can only be accessed by the root user.

I need to log in as root on my system to resolve an issue.

I had a root through the open drawers, but couldn’t find anything.

Verb, intransitive:
Large trees had rooted in the canal bank.

Stray dogs were rooting around for bones and scraps.

She was rooting through a pile of papers.

Verb, transitive:
It’s easy to root your own cuttings from stock plants.

Vegetarianism is rooted in Indian culture.

The Latin dubitare is rooted in an Indo-European word.

She found herself rooted to the spot in disbelief.

We explained how to manually root almost any Android device.

He managed to root out the cleaning kit.

The army was in a state of demoralization verging on rout.

The party lost more than half their seats in the rout.

The police managed to halt the rout before it progressed to a riot.

The army was in a state of demoralization verging on rout.

The party lost more than half their seats in the rout.

It was a rout of strangers who ought not to be admitted.

Lady Hennington beamed with delight at the success of her rout.

Verb, intransitive:
That damn Henry’s pigs were routing in the garden again.

She routed through his briefcase, looking for evidence.

Verb, transitive:
In a matter of minutes, the attackers were routed.

Bob routed each plank all along its length.

Simon routed him from the stable.

They routed him out of bed at midnight.

The path follows a route that goes over hill and under dale.

They chose the route for the railroad partly through bribery and partly through common sense.

Mary Ellen’s sales route took her through the midwestern states.

The many routes to a healthier diet will be described later in the book.

Verb, transitive:
All lines of communication were routed through Atlanta.
We’ll have to re-route the tour to get around the flooding.

The post office is pretty reliable about routing mail to its proper destination.

Calls were routed through the switchboard.

1. Late Old English rōt, from the Old Norse rót is related to the Latin radix, also to wort.
2. Old English wrōtan is of Germanic origin and related to the Old English wrōt meaning snout, the German Rüssel meaning snout, and perhaps ultimately to the Latin rodere meaning gnaw.

1. Middle English is ultimately based on the Latin ruptus meaning broken, which is from the verb rumpere (the verb is late 16th century) are from the obsolete French route, probably from the Italian rotta meaning breakup of an army.
2. Middle English and ultimately based on the Latin ruptus meaning broken, which is from the verb rumpere and via the Anglo-Norman French rute.
3. Early 19th century.
4. Mid-16th century is an alteration of the verb root ².