Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To root up, as swine.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb of an animal to
dig into the ground, with thesnout
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb dig with the snout
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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May the police now turn up on a whim and rootle around in our drawers?
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My great-grandparents would be dismayed by the dereliction of what was once the kitchen garden, where our pigs now rootle under the few survivors of Milicent's dozens of espaliered fruit trees, but they would, I hope, be reassured by the survival of some of the plants they put in, gifts of their friend Ellen Willmott, the great Edwardian gardener.
Hancox: All under one roof Charlotte Moore 2010
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A quick rootle through the Bod pre-1920 listings shows a mere 52 fifty-two?
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He wrapped a quilt around my shoulders, put a plate containing one and a half stale bannocks in front of me, and went to rootle in the cupboard after soap, washcloth, and linen towels.
Drums of Autumn Gabaldon, Diana 1997
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But if you rootle again I flog again: mind you that. '
The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay Maurice Hewlett 1892
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May the police now turn up on a whim and rootle around in our drawers?
The Guardian World News Victoria Coren 2011
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May the police now turn up on a whim and rootle around in our drawers? safeasmilk 2 October 2011 7:47AM
The Guardian World News Victoria Coren 2011
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I think this is the first time I have seen rootle in print.
The Guardian World News Victoria Coren 2011
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The animals are not tempted to eat the snowdrops, but when they rootle, it splits up the clumps, so after a couple of years, by the time the bulbs have settled and increased in size, they can be harvested and sold.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Mary Keen 2011
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May the police now turn up on a whim and rootle around in our drawers?
The Guardian World News Victoria Coren 2011
mollusque commented on the word rootle
Hence the libraries and laboratories; the observatories; the splendid equipment of costly and delicate instruments which now stands on glass shelves, where centuries ago the grass waved and the swine rootled.
--Virginia Woolf, 1929, A Room of One's Own
November 17, 2007
frogapplause commented on the word rootle
rootleing? rootling?
October 16, 2008
chained_bear commented on the word rootle
My dog does this in blankets.
October 16, 2008
mollusque commented on the word rootle
And then the chimps relaxed as the large dark shape of a bushpig appeared, rootling his way through the undergrowth.
--Jane Goodall, 2000, Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe, p. 98
October 16, 2008
bilby commented on the word rootle
I'm a desert rootler. I highly recommend it.
October 16, 2008
frogapplause commented on the word rootle
Rootin' tootin' rootler.
October 16, 2008
trivet commented on the word rootle
*loves*
October 16, 2008
janejetson commented on the word rootle
bunnies rootle the carpet
April 19, 2010