Dictionary

rooftree en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈɹuːftɹiː/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˈɹufˌtɹi/ (General-American)

Etymology

From roof + tree.

Meanings

1. The primary beam of a roof; the ridgepole; hence, the roof itself.
   • Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! / Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the rooftree fall. 1835, Alfred Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 111:
   • there an Annunciation that annihilates time by showing a rooftree throw the shadow of a cross between the Virgin and the angel […] 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate, published 2006, page 985:
2. (figuratively) A home; a household.
   • [T]he merry company flocked into the King's House, to dance again and drink tea, and make more love, and play round games, and joke, and sing songs, and eat supper under old Colonel Stafford's snug and kindly roof-tree. 1863, J[oseph] Sheridan Le Fanu, “In Which the Sun Sets, and the Merry-making is Kept Up by Candle-light in the King’s House, and Lily Receives a Warning Which She Does Not Comprehend”, in The House by the Church-yard. […], volume I, London: Tinsley, Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 251:
   • With the idea, presumably, of inducing the doctor's wife to leave her husband's roof-tree for some habitation which would be run at my expense, I had crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes, which represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth. 1910, Saki [pseudonym; Hector Hugh Munro], “The Lost Sanjak”, in Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 16:
   • He had forgotten that a prophet is without honor under his own rooftree. 1955, Mildred Clingerman, The Last Prophet:

Forms