roving

¹

[roh-ving]

adjective

1. roaming or wandering.

2. not assigned or restricted to any particular location, area, topic, etc..

   a roving editor.

3. not assigned to any particular diplomatic post but having a special mission.

   a roving ambassador.

roving

²

[roh-ving]

noun

1. a soft strand of fiber that has been twisted, attenuated, and freed of foreign matter preparatory to its conversion into yarn.

2. the final phase of carding, in which this is done.

Other Word Forms

• rovingly adverb
• rovingness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of roving¹

First recorded in 1590–1600; rove ¹ + -ing ²

Origin of roving²

First recorded in 1785–95; rove ³ + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

It’s unclear exactly how he was injured, but his lawyers say that Rovidio Marin had been at the car wash on Aug. 27, when immigration agents doing a “roving patrol” stormed in and raided it.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

In September, the Supreme Court temporarily lifted a lower-court order that had barred immigration agents in Los Angeles from “roving” patrols.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest.’”

Read more on Salon

After suffering through a harrowing summer, L.A. was finally able to relax a bit when a judge blocked ICE’s method of “roving raids” all over the city.

Read more on Salon

According to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, writing a concurrence in the Supreme Court’s emergency ruling allowing roving immigration raids in Los Angeles, any of these could be fair game, using law and “common sense.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• itinerant 
• peripatetic 
• wandering