rooter

One who, or that which, roots; one that tears up by the roots.

Noun

  1. One who, or that which, roots; one that tears up by the roots.
    • The rooter was terrorized, what with the mechanical noises right behind it, and it abandoned evasive turns and darts and made for the horizon with pitiful desperation. - 1994, Paul Quarrington, Civilization: And Its...
    • Juveniles arriving early tend to become rooters, while late arrivals are forced into stone-turning, having been chased away by the rooters. - 1999, The Secret Life of Animals, page 111:
    • Most rural farming families in the Big Thicket had “rooter hogs and woods cattle” roaming the free range around their homeplaces. - 2009, Larry Jene Fisher, Thad Sitton, C.E. Hunt, Big Thicket People, page 70:
  2. A type of heavy machinery similar to a plow for breaking up soil, concrete, asphalt, etc.
    • The five rooters or plows are so fastened in the frame that any one or all can be removed if desired, and each rooter is provided with a removable point, which can be taken off and sharpened without removing the entire...
    • Breaking old concrete is a simple task for powerful tractor and rooter if the teeth are hooked under slab edge and pulled forward, then raised up by rooter's cable lift. - 1955, Dan K. Heiple, Earthmoving, an Art and a...
    • If the airstrip site is on hard and rocky terrain, it will be necessary to loosen and break the soil by using a rooter. - 1959, United States. Bureau of Naval Personnel, Equipment Operator 3 & 2, page 177:
  3. A blade for producing a narrow groove in a piece of wood.
    • In cutting across the grain a small steel cutter, No. 10, must first be used in a similar manner, moving the strip of wood which acts as a gauge, to cut the second line exactly the same width as the "rooter" blade; the...
  4. A device for boring a pathway through a blocked drain or sewer.
    • The rooter was the tool that convinced me that plumbers and doctors were only alike if you'd missed out on your daily cone of mull. The head of the sewer rooter looked like something an alien would use to bore into your...
  5. One who roots or rummages through something.
    • Like so many of the self-made industry emperors of the late 1800s, he had been little more than a pawnshop rooter masquerading in collector's clothing, a connoisseur of canvas monstrosities, trashy novels and poetry...
  6. A type of malware that obtains and runs using privileged access, bypassing normal security systems.
    • In 2002 a new variant of auto-rooters was discovered in the wild: mass-rooters. - 2003, Lance Spitzner, Honeypots: Tracking Hackers, page 19:
    • The structure of a rooter is a fixed package: a program that generates fixed shell code with a fixed payload, launching it at a single target chosen by the attacker. - 2006, Harold F. Tipton, Micki Krause, Information...
  7. One who holds a primary or founding position in an enterprise.
    • Basically there are two kinds of Christians, the tooters and the rooters - the talkers and the doers. - 1992, Betty Malz, Morning Jam Sessions, page 185:
    • In today's context, any fair review of the "rooters" who contributed to the development of ergonomics and human factors would certainly include references to Earl A. Alluisi, because of his influence on the development...
  8. A plant, viewed in terms of how it establishes its roots.
    • It is now possible to see at a glance how good rooters and poor rooters compare in their response to auxin treatments. - 1953, Leslie John Audus, Plant Growth Substances, page 116:
    • In general the stem rooters need to be planted a good deal more deeply than the purely bulb rooting kinds. - 1964, Arthur George Lee Hellyer, The Amateur Gardener, page 355:
    • If only shallow rooters are present, the vegetation will die away quickly during a drought while interspersed deep rooters will thrive longer, - 1983, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, Bio-Dynamic Gardening and Farming - Volume 2,...

Origin

Etymology tree English root Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzijos Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English rooter From root + -er.

Forms

rooters

Derived

the rooter to the tooter

Noun US, slang

  1. One who roots for, or applauds, something.
    • Then, as the victorious team, streaming and slimy with mud, was borne by, literally in the arms of the populace, in a bit of momentary abstraction the beat wildly upon the thing nearest at hand, which happend to be the...
    • In my country a mythology exists concerning the rooter. Great names, great deeds, great passions, great fights, and great deaths from heart attacks are the landmarks on the battlefield of a sport incorporated in...
    • My oldest brother is a hefty twelve years older; we never quite bonded, though he's always been my supporter—a real rooter for me in academic studies. - 2007, Vershawn Ashanti Young, Your Average Nigga: Performing Race,...

Origin

Etymology tree English root Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzijos Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English rooter From root (“to cheer for”) + -er.

Forms

rooters