rove

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

• intransitive verb To wander about, especially over a wide area; roam. synonym: wander.
• intransitive verb To be directed without apparent purpose; look in an idle or casual manner.
• intransitive verb To roam or wander around, over, or through.
• intransitive verb To look at or around (an area) in an idle or casual manner.
• noun An act of wandering about, over, around, or through.
• transitive verb To card (wool).
• transitive verb To put (fibers) through an eye or opening.
• transitive verb To stretch and twist (fibers) before spinning; ravel out.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To wander at pleasure or without definite aim; pass the time in going about freely; range at random, or as accident or fancy may determine; roam; ramble.
• To aim, as in archery or other sport, especially at some accidental or casual mark. See roving mark, below.
• To act the rover; lead a wandering life of robbery, especially on the high seas; rob.
• To have rambling thoughts; be in a delirium; rave; be light-headed; hence, to be in high spirits; be full of fun and frolic. [Scotch.]
• Synonyms Roam, Wander, etc. See ramble, v.
• To wander over; roam about.
• . To discharge or shoot, as an arrow, at rovers, or in roving. See rover, 5.
• To plow into ridges, as a field, by turning one furrow upon another.
• noun The act of roving; a ramble; a wandering.
• To draw through an eye or aperture; bring, as wool or cotton, into the form which it receives before being spun into thread; card into flakes. as wool, etc.; slub; sliver.
• To draw out into thread; ravel out.
• noun A roll of wool, cotton, etc., drawn out and slightly twisted; a slub.
• noun A diamond-shaped washer placed over the end of a rove clench-nail, which is riveted down upon it.
• noun Preterit and past participle of reeve.
• noun An obsolete form of roof.
• In mech., to turn; make round: said particularly of turning stone: as, to rove a millstone.
• noun A unit of weight, the arroba, formerly used in England.

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

• transitive verb To draw through an eye or aperture.
• transitive verb To draw out into flakes; to card, as wool.
• transitive verb To twist slightly; to bring together, as slivers of wool or cotton, and twist slightly before spinning.
• noun A copper washer upon which the end of a nail is clinched in boat building.
• noun A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and slighty twisted, preparatory to further process; a roving.
• transitive verb To wander over or through.
• transitive verb To plow into ridges by turning the earth of two furrows together.
• noun The act of wandering; a ramble.
• noun (Zoöl.) any one of numerous species of beetles of the family Staphylinidæ, having short elytra beneath which the wings are folded transversely. They are rapid runners, and seldom fly.
• intransitive verb obsolete To practice robbery on the seas; to wander about on the seas in piracy.
• intransitive verb Hence, to wander; to ramble; to rauge; to go, move, or pass without certain direction in any manner, by sailing, walking, riding, flying, or otherwise.
• intransitive verb (Archery) To shoot at rovers; hence, to shoot at an angle of elevation, not at point-blank (rovers usually being beyond the point-blank range).

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

• verb Simple past of rive.
• verb obsolete, intransitive To shoot with arrows (at).
• verb intransitive To roam, or wander about at random, especially over a wide area.
• verb transitive To card wool or other fibres.

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

• verb move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment