room

See also: Room and rõõm

English

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ɹʊm/, /ɹuːm/
  • Audio (UK with /ʊ/)(file)
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ɹum/
  • Audio (US with /u/)(file)
  • (New England, Tidewater, Ottawa Valley) IPA(key): /ɹʊm/
  • Homophone: rheum (/ɹum/)
  • Homophone: rum (/ɹʊm/; without foot–strut split)
  • Rhymes: -uːm, -ʊm

Etymology 1

From Middle English roum, from Old English rūm (“room, space”), from Proto-West Germanic *rūm (“room”), from Proto-Germanic *rūmą (“room”), from Proto-Indo-European *rewh₁- (“free space”).

Cognate with Low German Ruum, Dutch ruimte (“space”) and Dutch ruim (“cargo load”), German Raum (“space, interior space”), Danish rum (“space, locality”), Norwegian rom (“space”), Swedish rum (“space, location”), and also with Latin rūs (“country, field, farm”) through Indo-European. More at rural.

It is ostensibly an exception to the Great Vowel Shift, which otherwise would have produced the pronunciation /ɹaʊm/, but /aʊ/ does not occur before noncoronal consonants in Modern English native vocabulary.

A room (part of a building) in a hotel.

Noun

room (countable and uncountable, plural rooms)

  1. (now rare) Opportunity or scope (to do something). [from 9th c.]
  2. (uncountable) Space for something, or to carry out an activity. [from 10th c.]
    • 2010 August 27, Jonathan Franklin, The Guardian:
      He explains they have enough room to stand and lie down, points out the "little cup to brush our teeth", and the place where they pray.
  3. (archaic) A particular portion of space. [from 11th c.]
  4. (uncountable, figuratively) Sufficient space for or to do something. [from 15th c.]
    • 1716 March 13 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 21. Friday, March 2. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:
      There was no prince in the empire who had room for such an alliance.
    • 2010 September 12, Roger Bootle, The Telegraph:
      There are major disagreements within the Coalition and politicians always want to retain room for manoeuvre.
  5. (nautical) A space between the timbers of a ship's frame. [from 15th c.]
  6. (obsolete) Place; stead.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:
      For this purpose I have shown that no acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.
    • 1900, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 2nd edition, volume 2, page 37:
      A ram was accepted as a vicarious sacrifice in room of the royal victim.
  7. (countable) A separate part of a building, enclosed by walls, a floor and a ceiling. [from 15th c.]
    • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:
      Miss Bingley made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked about the room.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.
  8. (countable, with possessive pronoun) (One's) bedroom.
    Go to your room!
  9. (in the plural) A set of rooms inhabited by someone; one's lodgings. [from 17th c.]
  10. (usually in the singular, metonymically) The people in a room. [from 17th c.]
    The room was on its feet.
    He was good at reading rooms.
    It was fun to watch her work the room.
  11. (mining) An area for working in a coal mine. [from 17th c.]
  12. (caving) A portion of a cave that is wider than a passage. [from 17th c.]
  13. (Internet, countable) An IRC or chat room. [from 20th c.]
    Some users may not be able to access the AOL room.
    • 2000, “My Internet Girl”, performed by Aaron Carter:
      Here in the room we are as one / Together you and me, together you and me / Hours connect / As we switch on
  14. Place or position in society; office; rank; post, sometimes when vacated by its former occupant.
  15. A quantity of furniture sufficient to furnish one room.
    • 1985, August Wilson, Fences:
      “I understand you need some furniture and can’t get no credit.” I liked to fell over. He say, “I’ll give you all the credit you want, but you got to pay the interest on it.” I told him, “Give me three rooms worth and charge whatever you want.”
Quotations
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:room.
Synonyms
Hyponyms
  • See Category:en:Rooms
Meronyms
Holonyms
Derived terms
Descendants
  • → Japanese: ルーム (rūmu)
  • → Kikuyu: rumu
  • → Maori: rūma
Translations

Verb

room (third-person singular simple present rooms, present participle rooming, simple past and past participle roomed)

  1. (intransitive) To reside, especially as a boarder or tenant.
    Doctor Watson roomed with Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street.
    • 1951, J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 25:
      Even without looking up, I knew right away who it was. It was Robert Ackley, this guy that roomed right next to me.
    • 1971 June 13, Paul Goldberger, “On the Champs — Elysees: ‘Hey, Aren't You the Girl Who Sits Across From Me in Abnormal Psych?’”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      But, then, running into the guy who rooms across the hall from me—in the Paris Metro?
  2. (transitive) To assign to a room; to allocate a room to.
    • 1988, Arthur Frederick Ide, AIDS hysteria, page 12:
      […] convinced (with no scientific evidence) that they would contract the dread disease by breathing the same air in which the patient was roomed, by touching the patient or even by changing the sheets of a patient's bed.
Derived terms
Terms derived from the room (verb)
Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English roum, rom, rum, from Old English rūm (“roomy, spacious, ample, extensive, large, open, unencumbered, unoccupied, temporal, long, extended, great, liberal, unrestricted, unfettered, clear, loose, free from conditions, free from occupation, not restrained within due limits, lax, far-reaching, abundant, noble, august”), from Proto-Germanic *rūmaz (“roomy, spacious”), from Proto-Indo-European *rewh₁- (“free space”). Cognate with Scots roum (“spacious, roomy”), Dutch ruim (“roomy, spacious, wide”), Danish rum (“wide, spacious”), German raum (“wide”), Icelandic rúmur (“spacious”).

Adjective

room (comparative more room, superlative most room)

  1. (dialectal or obsolete) Wide; spacious; roomy.

Etymology 3

From Middle English rome, from Old English rūme (“widely, spaciously, roomily, far and wide, so as to extend over a wide space, liberally, extensively, amply, abundantly, in a high degree, without restriction or encumbrance, without the pressure of care, light-heartedly, without obstruction, plainly, clearly, in detail”). Cognate with Dutch ruim (“amply”, adverb).

Adverb

room (comparative more room, superlative most room)

  1. (dialectal or obsolete) Far; at a distance; wide in space or extent.
  2. (nautical) Off from the wind.

Noun

room (uncountable)

  1. Alternative form of roum (“deep blue dye”)

Further reading

Anagrams

Afrikaans

Etymology

From Dutch room, from Middle Dutch rôme, from Old Dutch *rōm, from Proto-West Germanic *raum, from Proto-Germanic *raumaz, , from Proto-Indo-European *réwgʰmn̥ (“cream”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /rʊə̯m/
  • Audio(file)

Noun

room (uncountable)

  1. cream

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch rôme, from Old Dutch *rōm, from Proto-West Germanic *raum, from Proto-Germanic *raumaz, from Proto-Indo-European *réwgʰmn̥ (“cream”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /roːm/
  • audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: room
  • Rhymes: -oːm

Noun

room m (uncountable)

  1. cream (of milk)

Derived terms

Descendants

Anagrams
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