Root

How to spell root

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce root

What does root mean?

1. nounThe part of a plant that grows below the ground, anchoring it and absorbing water and nutrients.
2. nounThe fundamental origin or underlying cause of something.
3. nounA number that produces a given quantity when multiplied by itself a stated number of times.
4. verbTo dig or rummage in search of something, the way a pig turns over soil.

Root in a sentence

• noun

  The gardener cut through a thick root while digging the bed.

• noun

  The auditors traced the error to its root in a single spreadsheet.

• noun

  The square root of forty-nine is seven.

• verb

  The pigs root in the mud for acorns each autumn.

• noun

  The oak's deep root system kept it standing through the storm.

• noun

  Poor planning was the root of the project's delay.

Where does root come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Root entered English in the late Old English period from the Old Norse word rot, meaning the underground part of a plant that anchors it and draws up water. This Norse form gradually displaced the native Old English wyrt, which survives instead in 'wort' (as in the plant names like St John's wort). Both ultimately trace back to the same ancient root that also gave Latin radix, the source of 'radish' and 'radical'. From the literal plant sense the word branched out in two directions: figuratively to mean the origin or cause of something (the root of the problem), and technically into mathematics for the value that, when multiplied by itself, yields a given number. The spelling stayed simple and phonetic, though English speakers often have to keep it distinct from the unrelated word 'route', which in many accents sounds identical.

How the word is built

• root (a single Old English/Old Norse base meaning the underground part of a plant; no affixes)