Word Finder - roots

definition

The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.

example

This tree's roots can go as deep as twenty metres underground.

definition

A root vegetable.

definition

The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.

example

Root damage is a common problem of overbrushing.

definition

The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.

example

The root is the only part of the hair that is alive.

definition

The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.

example

He dyed his hair black last month, so the grey roots can be seen.

definition

The primary source; origin.

example

The love of money is the root of all evil.

synonyms

• basis
• origin
• source

definition

Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.

example

The cube root of 27 is 3.

definition

A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, “the root of” is often abbreviated to “root”).

example

Multiply by root 2.

definition

A zero (of an equation).

synonyms

• zero

definition

The single node of a tree that has no parent.

definition

The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.

definition

(philology) A word from which another word or words are derived.

synonyms

• etymon

definition

The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.

definition

The lowest place, position, or part.

definition

In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.

example

I have to log in as root before I do that.

synonyms

• root account
• root user
• superuser

definition

The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories.

example

I installed the files in the root directory.

definition

A penis, especially the base of a penis.

definition

An act of sexual intercourse.

example

Fancy a root?

synonyms

• screw
• shag

definition

A sexual partner.

synonyms

• screw

definition

Ancestry.

example

I have both Irish and German roots.

definition

Beginnings; origin.

example

Jazz has its roots in blues.

Grass roots efforts to assist people in need.

If that Alex returned to his roots, there was no reason she couldn't be at his side.

Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth.

Grabbing the worn roots of an old tree, she climbed out of the pool.

That's Roman wormwood--that's pigweed--that's sorrel--that's piper-grass--have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t' other side up and be as green as a leek in two days.

Every portion, from its roots to its leaves, serves some useful purpose.

Other forms which correspond to other relations between the roots can be readily deduced from the most general form.

If the two middle roots are equal, fig.

From this, as well as from various parts of the shoot system, other roots may originate.

Shallow planting, whether of wall trees or standards, is generally to be preferred, a covering of a few inches of soil being sufficient for the roots, but a surface of at least equal size to, the surface of the hole should be covered with dung or litter so as to restrain evaporation and preserve moisture.

The cerebellum receives paths from most, if not from all, of the afferent roots.

Newton discussed the five forms which arise from the relations of the roots of the cubic equation.

If two roots are imaginary the equation is y 2 =(x 2 +a 2) (x - b) and the curve resembles the parabolic branch, as in the preceding case.

Their food consists principally of game, roots and wild fruits.

Parasitic on the roots of the hazel is found the curious leafless Lathraea Squamaria or toothwort.

I might have a later text with similar symbols I can use to trace the roots of the writing, Tamer answered.

Examine all plants that are vigorous and healthy; if the roots have matted the " ball " of earth they must be shifted into a larger-sized pot.

If roots have been placed in cellars, attention must be given to ventilation, which can be done by making a wooden box, say 6 by 8 in., to run from the ceiling of the cellar to the eaves of the building above.

The roots of several of these forms are known as Stigmaria.

The tendency of the dunes to drift off on the landward side is prevented by the planting of bent-grass (Arundo arenaria), whose long roots serve to bind the sand together.

In other cases the strands undergo differentiation into an outer layer with blackened, hardened cell-walls and a core of ordinary hyphae, and are then termed rhizomorphs (Armillaria mellea), capable not only of extending the fungus in the soil, like roots, but also of lying dormant, protected by the outer casing.

The simpler mycelia consist of hyphae all alike and thin-walled, or merely differing in the diameter of the branches of various orders, or in their relations to the environment, some plunging into the substratum like roots, others remaining on its surface, and others (aerial hyphae) rising into the air.

Dematophora necatrix on roots, Calyptospora Goeppertiana on stems, Ustilago Scabiosae in anthers, Claviceps purpurea in ovaries, &c. Associated with these relations are the specializations which parasites show in regard to the age of the host.

Many trees are found to have their smaller roots invaded by fungi and deformed by their action, but so far from these being injurious, experiments go to show that this mycorhiza (fungus-root) is necessary for the well-being of the tree.

It is nowhere abundant, but is found over the northern parts of Europe and Asia, and is a quiet, inoffensive animal, nocturnal and solitary in its habits, sleeping by day in its burrow, and issuing forth at night to feed on roots, beech-mast, fruits, the eggs of birds, small quadrupeds, frogs and insects.

Thus the earth and the roots of grasses absorb the useful matters not only from the water that passes over it, but from that which passes through it.

These fertilizing materials are found stored up in the soil ready for the use of the roots of the plants.

Stagnation of water is inimical to the action of the roots, and does away with the advantageous processes of flowing and percolating currents.

These coming into contact with the roots of plants during their season of active growth, are utilized as direct nourishment for the vegetation.

In this way as the water sinks down through the porous subsoil or into the subterranean drains oxygen enters and supplies an element which is needed, not only for the oxidation of organic matters in the earth, but also for the direct and indirect nutrition of the roots.

For, though grass will grow even under ice, yet if ice be formed under and around the roots of the grasses the plants may be thrown out by the expansion of the water at the moment of its conversion into ice.

It appears, however, that a very large share of the benefits of water-irrigation is attributable to the mere contact of abundance of moving water, of an even temperature, with the roots of the grass.

The growth is less checked by early frosts; and whatever advantages to the vegetation may accrue by occasional excessive warmth in the atmosphere in the early months of the year are experienced more by the irrigated than by the ordinary meadow grasses by reason of the abundant development of roots which the water has encouraged.

Breeding swine, male and female, run most of their time at pasture and receive a liberal allowance of green food or raw roots.

Food may with advantage be cooked for very young pigs; but, with the exception of potatoes, which should never be given raw, roots and meals are best given uncooked.

Meal mixed with pulped roots for a few hours improves in digestibility, and a sprinkling of salt is an improvement.

Wheat, barley, oats, peas, potatoes and other roots are staple crops, the average yield of wheat being about 20 bushels an acre; cattle are increasing in number and improving in quality, and all branches of dairy farming prosper.

They are often shed throughout life, the successors lying on the inner side, and with their caps partly fitting into the wide open roots of the older teeth.

Owing to the very imperfect notation of sound in the writing, the highly important subject, of the verbal roots and verbal forms was perhaps the obscurest branch of Egyptian grammar when Sethe first attacked it in 1895.

The characteristic triliteral roots of all the Semitic languages seemed to separate them widely from others; but certain traits have caused the Egyptian, Berber and Cushite groups to be classed together as three subfamilies of a Hamitic group, remotely related to the Semitic. The biliteral character of Coptic, and the biliteralism which was believed to exist in Egyptian, led philologists to suspect that Egyptian might be a surviving witness to that far-off stage of the Semitic languages when triliteral roots had not yet been formed from presumed original biliterals; Sethes investigations, however, prove that the Coptic biliterals are themselves derived from Old Egyptian triliterals, and that the triliteral roots enormously preponderated in Egyptian of the earliest known form; that view is, therefore, no longer tenable.

The latter acquired the Semitic language imperfectly from their conquerors; they expressed the verbal conjugations by periphrases, mispronounced the consonants, and so changed greatly, the appearance of the vocabulary, which also would certainly contain a large proportion of native nonSemitic roots.

Egyptian roots consist of consonants and semi-consonants only, the inflexion being effected by internal vowel-change and the addition of consonants or vowels at the beginning or end.

Masculine and feminine nouns of instrument or material are formed from verbal roots by prefixing m; e.g.

Some roots are reduplicated wholly or in part with a frequentative meaning, and there are traces of gemination of radicals.

It had struck deep roots into the habits and feelings of the people, and traces of its survival were distinguishable a whole century after the triumph of the Reformation.

Leaf-buds occasionally arise from the roots, when they are called adventitious; this occurs in many fruit trees, poplars, elms and others.

In many Dicotyledons and most Monocotyledons, the primary root soon perishes, and its place is taken by adventitious roots developed from the stem.

The developing embryo at the end of the suspensor grows out to a varying extent into the forming endosperm, from which by surface absorption it derives good material for growth; at the same time the suspensor plays a direct part as a carrier of nutrition, and may even develop, where perhaps no endosperm is formed, special absorptive "suspensor roots" which invest the developing embryo, or pass out into the body and coats of the ovule, or even into the placenta.

Certain species are regularly found in the intercellular spaces of higher plants; such are species of Nostoc in the thallus of Anthoceros, the leaves of Azolla and the roots of Cycads.

On account of an important difference in the structure of its molars, it is now very generally referred to a distinct genus, under the name of Evotomys glareolus; these teeth developing roots at a certain stage of existence, instead of growing permanently.