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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

rood en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ɹuːd/
  • (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English rode, rood (“cross”), from Old English rōd (“cross”), from Proto-Germanic *rōdō, *rōdǭ (“rod, pole”), from Proto-Indo-European *rōt-, *reh₁t- (“bar, beam, stem”). Cognate with German Rute (“rod, cane, pole”), Norwegian roda (“rod”). Largely displaced by cross. More at rod.

Meanings

  1. (archaic) A crucifix, cross, especially in a church.
    • Have you forgot me? No, by the rood, not so. c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:
    • By holy rood, a royal beard! / How say you? we have slept, my lords. / My beard has grown into my lap. 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “The Day-Dream. The Revival.”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 157:
    • The Citizens in their rage, imagining that euery poſt in the Churche had bin one of yᵉ Souldyers, ſhot habbe or nabbe at randon^([sic – meaning random]) uppe to the Roode lofte, and to the Chancell, leauing ſome of theyr arrowes ſticking in the Images. 1577, Raphaell Holinshed; Richarde Stanyhurst [i.e., Richard Stanihurst], “[The Historie of Irelande […].] The Thirde Booke of the Historie of Ireland, Comprising the Raigne of Henry the Eyght: ….”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC, pages 77–78, column 2:
  2. A measure of land area, equal to a quarter of an acre.
    • Perhaps, however, he could ensure against being completely alone by cultivating the few roods of garden wished upon him. 1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 195:
    • Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth / Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth, / Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood / Changes and off he goes!) within a rood— / Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth. 1855, Robert Browning, “‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.’”, in Men and Women […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, stanza XXV:
    • […] a bumptious fool whose god was property, not property in vast estates such as a true man might worship, but in paltry roods. 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter V, in Capricornia, page 58:
  3. (historical, qualifier:Chester) An area of sixty-four square yards.
  4. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) A measure of five and a half yards in length.
    • Thus Satan […] his other parts besides / Prone on the flood, extended long and large, / Lay floating many a rood […] 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
  5. (archaic) The human face.
    • Nou goth sonne under wode,— Me reweth, Marie, thi faire Rode. Nou goth sonne under tre,— 13th century, Edmund of Abingdon (or Anonymous); reproduced in Carleton Fairchild Brown (ed.), English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century (1932), p. 1, from Bodl. MS. Arch. Selden 74, f.55v

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
roods Number=Plur lexicographic

Deriveds

rood-loft · Holy Rood · rood beam · holy rood · Roodmas · rood-steeple · rood screen · by the rood · rood goose · rood-tree · Holyrood · Rood End

Hypernyms

acre (quarter of an acre)

Hyponyms

lug (quarter of an acre) · fall (quarter of an acre) · perch (quarter of an acre)

Synonyms

rod (quarter of an acre) · day's work (quarter of an acre) · ferling (quarter of an acre) · farthingdale (quarter of an acre) · farundel (quarter of an acre) · farthingdeal (quarter of an acre) · dunam (quarter of an acre; Israeli) · farthingdole (quarter of an acre) · Scottish rood (quarter of an acre) · yard (quarter of an acre) · farthing (quarter of an acre) · daywork (quarter of an acre)

Translations (8)

ga ród (quarter of an acre) · fr vergée (quarter of an acre) · mk распе́тие (crucifix) · vi Thánh Giá (crucifix) · nrf pèrque (quarter of an acre) · fi krusifiksi (crucifix) · mi rūri (quarter of an acre) · nl kruis (crucifix)