ROAM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does roam mean? 

• ROAM (verb)
  The verb ROAM has 1 sense:

1. move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment

  Familiarity information: ROAM used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ROAM (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they roam    ... he / she / it roams   
Past simple: roamed   
Past participle: roamed   
-ing form: roaming   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

cast; drift; ramble; range; roam; roll; rove; stray; swan; tramp; vagabond; wander

Context example:

They rolled from town to town

Hypernyms (to "roam" is one way to...):

go; locomote; move; travel (change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically)

Verb group:

drift; err; stray (wander from a direct course or at random)

wander (go via an indirect route or at no set pace)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "roam"):

maunder (wander aimlessly)

gad; gallivant; jazz around (wander aimlessly in search of pleasure)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence examples:

They roam the countryside
They roam in the countryside

Derivation:

roamer (someone who leads a wandering unsettled life)

 Context examples 

I roamed from place to place, carrying my burden with me everywhere.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He roamed about the house, and the women ran for it when they heard him coming.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With that he put his money into his purse, and set out, roaming over hill and valley.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

I spent the following day roaming through the valley.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Summerlee had lain down and slept upon the sand, but we others roamed round the edge of the water, seeking to learn something more of this strange country.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In every other direction the moor is a complete wilderness, inhabited only by a few roaming gypsies.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I threw on my clothes and ran down at once; my patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

This pulsar is 50 million light years away, which means its light dates back to a time before humans roamed Earth.

(NuSTAR Helps Find Universe's Brightest Pulsars, NASA)

By-and-by Jo roamed away upstairs, for it was rainy, and she could not walk.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Scientists have long assumed these basins were dead, still places where the last geologic activity occurred long before dinosaurs roamed Earth.

(Study Finds New Wrinkles on Earth's Moon, NASA)