Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The eggs or spawn of a fish, contained within or separated from the ovary, especially when prepared as food.
  • noun The milt-containing testes of a fish, especially when prepared as food.
  • noun The eggs or gonads of certain marine invertebrates, such as a lobster or a sea urchin.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The roe-deer.
  • noun Improperly, the adult female of the hart; the doe of the stag or red deer.
  • noun The spawn of a fish.
  • noun The spawn of various crustaceans, used for food, as the berry, coral, or mass of eggs of the female lobster.
  • noun A mottled appearance in wood, especially in mahogany, being the alternate streak of light and shade running with the grain, or from end to end of the log.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A roebuck. See roebuck.
  • noun The female of any species of deer.
  • noun (Zoöl.) The ova or spawn of fishes and amphibians, especially when still inclosed in the ovarian membranes. Sometimes applied, loosely, to the sperm and the testes of the male.
  • noun A mottled appearance of light and shade in wood, especially in mahogany.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The eggs of fish.
  • noun The sperm of certain fish.
  • noun The ovaries of certain crustaceans.
  • noun A small, nimble Eurasian deer, Capreolus capreolus, with short three-pointed antlers, no visible tail, a white rump patch, and a reddish summer coat that turns grey in winter.
  • noun A mottled appearance of light and shade in wood, especially in mahogany.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun fish eggs or egg-filled ovary; having a grainy texture
  • noun the egg mass or spawn of certain crustaceans such as the lobster
  • noun the eggs or egg-laden ovary of a fish
  • noun eggs of female fish

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English roughe, ro, from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch roge.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ca. 1450; Middle English rowe, roof, from earlier roughe, from Middle Dutch rōge, from Proto-Germanic *hrugō (compare Dutch roge, Old High German rogo), from Proto-Indo-European *krek- (“spawn”) (compare Lithuanian kurkulaĩ ‘frog eggs’, Russian кряк (krjak) ‘id.’).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English ro, from Old English , fuller rāha, from Proto-Germanic *raihan (compare Saterland Frisian Räi, Dutch ree, German Reh), from *róiko-, from Proto-Indo-European *rei- (“spotted, streaked”) (compare Irish riabh ‘stripe, streak’, Latvian ràibs ‘spotted’, Russian rjabój ‘mottled fur’).

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