Roster
nounA list of people and the duties, shifts, or turns assigned to them.
How to spell roster
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce roster
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does roster mean?
- nounA list of people and the duties, shifts, or turns assigned to them.
- verbTo place someone on a schedule of duties or shifts.
Roster in a sentence
-
noun
The manager pinned the weekend roster to the staffroom wall.
-
verb
The supervisor will roster two extra staff for the busy holiday period.
-
noun
Nurses checked the ward roster to see who was on the night shift.
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verb
Head office decided to roster him onto the early shift all week.
Where does roster come from?
Language of origin: Dutch
Roster comes from the Dutch word rooster, which literally meant a 'grid' or 'gridiron', the latticework of parallel iron bars used for grilling. The same grid shape was used for ruled tables and timetables, so rooster came to mean a printed schedule laid out in lines and columns. English borrowed the word in the early 1700s, almost certainly through military usage, where a roster was the table listing soldiers and the order in which they took their turns of duty. From that army origin it broadened into any list of people and their assigned tasks or shifts. The unexpected 'grid' meaning is a handy memory aid: the single -s- and the -er ending both echo the original Dutch rooster, which is why there is no double letter or -or ending to trip over.
How the word is built
- roster (a single root from Dutch rooster meaning 'grid' or 'gridiron'; no prefix or suffix)
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