Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having no roots.
- adjective Not belonging to a particular place or society.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Having no root.
- In zoology, having a persistently open pulp-cavity and growing perennially, as the incisor teeth of rodents, and the molar teeth of many of these animals; not rooted so as to stop growing. See
Rodentia .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Destitute of roots.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Describing a plant (or by extension something else) that does not have
roots . - adjective A
wanderer , someone who has no ties to a particular locale.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective wandering aimlessly without ties to a place or community
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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It doesn't seem like a mistake that Mike himself is apparently "rootless"--a traveler, wanderer, lone wolf--and it is women of a similar nomadic lifestyle who finally do him in.
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They are called rootless and non-abiding, serenely stilled and stilled beyond, possessing natural clear light, having nothing to adopt or reject, and so forth.
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Evans pioneered a way of opening up harmonies — his so-called "rootless" chords — that freed his bassists to interact above, below, in and around his piano playing.
Emulating Bill Evans 2010
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But the geologist said the crack in the sandstone floor was "rootless," meaning it did not lead to a coal seam, and was not venting methane, Stricklin said.
Massey: Don't 'Rush To Judgment' Blaming Us For West Virginia Mine Explosion 2010
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has told an audience of theological students that both intensely liberal and ultra conservative readings of the Bible are 'rootless' and are limited in what they can contribute to the life of the Church.
Archbishop in Canada- Church Needs to Listen Properly to the Bible 2007
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Salad baba, then don't fall into some kind of rootless limbo instead.
The Satanic Verses Rushdie, Salman 1967
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But the geologist said the crack in the sandstone floor was "rootless," meaning it did not lead to a coal seam, and was not venting methane, Stricklin said.
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I believe the term "rootless" better describes the feeling than does the term
NYT > Home Page 2010
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Young Foundation, run by policy guru Geoff Mulgan, are addressing the charge that thinktanks are "rootless", by merging policy research and thinking with real world policy experimentation.
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Young Foundation, run by policy guru Geoff Mulgan, are addressing the charge that thinktanks are "rootless", by merging policy research and thinking with real world policy experimentation.
Politics news, UK and world political comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk Ben Rogers 2010
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