Roofing

How to spell roofing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce roofing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does roofing mean?

1. nounThe material used to cover the top of a building, or the covering itself.
2. nounThe work or trade of fitting and repairing the tops of buildings.

Roofing in a sentence

• The storm tore several tiles off the roofing above the kitchen.

• He ran a small roofing business for over twenty years.

• They ordered enough roofing to cover the entire extension.

• Wet weather delayed the roofing work on the warehouse.

Where does roofing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows directly from the noun 'roof', which comes from the Old English 'hrof', meaning the top covering of a building or, more broadly, the sky overhead. That word belonged to a wider Germanic family, with a close relative in the Dutch 'roef', a term for a cabin or shelter, and it has stayed remarkably stable in form for well over a thousand years. The suffix '-ing' was attached in the ordinary English way to turn the noun into a word for the material used to cover a roof and for the activity of laying it. The doubled 'o' is the spelling trap here: it preserves the long vowel of the original 'hrof' and must not be reduced to a single 'o'. Because 'roof' has changed so little, the modern word is essentially the old Anglo-Saxon term with a familiar working suffix added on.

How the word is built

• roof (covering of a building, from Old English hrof)
• -ing (forming a noun of material or activity)