Roger

How to spell roger

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce roger

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does roger mean?

1. interjectionA spoken signal in radio communication meaning that a message has been received and understood.

Roger in a sentence

• The pilot replied roger to confirm the new altitude.

• The dispatcher said roger and logged the delivery instructions.

Where does roger come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes straight out of military radio procedure. In the phonetic alphabet used by British and American forces in the early twentieth century, the letter R was spoken as 'Roger', and R was chosen as the standard shorthand for 'received'. So when an operator said 'Roger', it literally meant 'R for received', that is, 'your message has come through and is understood'. The personal name Roger itself is much older, brought to England by the Normans from a Germanic name combining 'hrod' (fame) and 'ger' (spear), but its use as a radio reply has nothing to do with anyone called Roger; it survives only because R happened to spell out that way. When the NATO alphabet later replaced 'Roger' with 'Romeo' for the letter R, the acknowledgement word 'Roger' had already stuck in everyday speech and stayed.

How the word is built

• roger (from the spelling-alphabet name for the letter R, standing for 'received')