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• roost
  roost

  noun

  a perch upon which birds or fowls rest at night.
• Roost
  Roost

  noun

  a powerful current caused by conflicting tides around the Shetland and Orkney Islands

roost

American  

[roost] / rust /

noun

roosts plural

1. a perch upon which birds or fowls rest at night.

2. a large cage, house, or place for fowls or birds to roost in.

3. a place for sitting, resting, or lodging.

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verb (used without object)

roosts, present (3rd person singular) roosted, past participle, past roosting present participle

1. to sit or rest on a roost, perch, etc.

2. to settle or stay, especially for the night.

idioms

1. rule the roost, to be in charge or control; dominate.

   It was only too apparent that his grandfather ruled the roost.

2. come home to roost, (of an action) to revert or react unfavorably to the doer; boomerang.

   an evil deed that came home to roost and ruined his life.

roost ¹ British  

/ ruːst /

noun

1. a place, perch, branch, etc, where birds, esp domestic fowl, rest or sleep

2. a temporary place to rest or stay

3. See rule

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verb

1. (intr) to rest or sleep on a roost

2. (intr) to settle down or stay

3. to have unfavourable repercussions

Roost ² British  

/ ruːst /

noun

1. a powerful current caused by conflicting tides around the Shetland and Orkney Islands

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roost More Idioms  

1. see chickens come home to roost; rule the roost.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unroosted
  adjective
• unroosting
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• roosts
  plural

Participles

• roosting
  present
• roosted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• roost
  simple
• roosts
  simple
• have roosted
  perfect
• has roosted
  perfect
• am roosting
  progressive
• are roosting
  progressive
• is roosting
  progressive
• have been roosting
  perfect progressive
• has been roosting
  perfect progressive

Past

• roosted
  simple
• had roosted
  perfect
• was roosting
  progressive
• were roosting
  progressive
• had been roosting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will roost
  simple
• will have roosted
  perfect
• will be roosting
  progressive
• will have been roosting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of roost

before 1100; Middle English roost (noun), Old English hrōst; cognate with Middle Dutch roest

Explanation

A roost is a place where birds or bats can sleep or rest safely. Backyard chickens need a comfortable, secure roost to stay warm and rested. You can use roost to mean the perch that birds stand on while resting, the structure that contains the perch, or even a random tree branch, in the case of a wild bird. As a verb, it means to sit or to rest: "The chickens began to roost for the evening." When someone says, "Chickens come home to roost," they mean that bad actions eventually have bad consequences. And if you "rule the roost," you're in charge.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

roost Roost roosts roosted roosting

And he has been patrolling the skies and the lawns since 2008, ruling the roost at the centuries old site.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

And your little white lies will come home to roost.

From MarketWatch ● May 26, 2026

At one point Neriya and her companions are ushered into the sanctum sanctorum of a corvid roost, where thousands if not millions of crows coexist in sophisticated collaboration.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

So I made my way to Highland Park to meet the one who rules the roost.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026

All were not far from the site of the huge pigeon roost that Audubon visited.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Just a few blocks from both the Ritz and Roost, The Marble Room is a steakhouse and raw bar housed in a stunning old bank.

From Salon ● Mar. 30, 2025

At Red Hen Roost, a 73-acre corn farm in New York that also sells through Handsome Brook, some hens are waiting at the barn doors first thing in the morning, owner Luke Nolt says.

From National Geographic ● Feb. 16, 2024

The $89.95 Roost is my favorite laptop stand.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 28, 2023

Then an unexpected break came: The manager of the Royal Roost, a top New York City jazz club, who had heard Belafonte sing in a play, offered him a job singing during intermissions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2023

Iam no traitor,” the Knight of Griffin’s Roost declared.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

The development is expected to displace 130 bat roosts but Reform UK county councillor, Vernon Smith, said he was astonished by the cost of the project.

From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026

His team has closely monitored this elusive forest-dwelling species using "smart" roosts equipped with antennas to detect implanted microchips in the bats.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 2, 2025

How about a nocturnal animal like an owl or those nighttime migrants – will they start to rustle from their roosts before they realize it’s not night?

From Salon ● Apr. 6, 2024

At dusk, hundreds of wild parrots, some in large flocks, some singly or in pairs, approach from all directions, squawking loudly and circling overhead before settling on a variety of roosts.

From National Geographic ● Dec. 13, 2023

I came to a zone of bat roosts.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

To test the method, the team examined hundreds of tiny fossil bones left behind by owls that once roosted inside the cave.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 24, 2026

Colorful birds roosted on tangled branches and trunks, and small paths under the green and occasionally yellow leaves beckoned us to explore.

From New York Times ● May 8, 2024

Many of these were condors that had roosted in Arizona’s Vermilion Cliffs, the same place where captive-bred birds were first released in 1996.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 29, 2023

I pushed the issue, saying I was working on a novel about this relative, and would just enjoy seeing where he'd roosted all these years, but she was shaking her head no, no, no.

From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2021

A blackbird with a yellow beak flew into the open area and roosted on a tree branch.

From "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" by Chris Grabenstein

In March, the Town of Hillsborough sued Kenneth and Linda Ostrand, demanding they stop feeding a large group of the black vultures roosting on their property.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026

A woman has been forced to sleep in her car after discovering hundreds of bats roosting in her home - and being told there is nothing she can do to remove them.

From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2025

Expect to see and hear more chickens roosting in the next four years.

From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2025

Madison’s annual Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza raised multiple alarms, as the detonations traumatized roosting birds and sent them fleeing, many into traffic, and damaged wetland duck habitats with toxic detritus.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2024

And in answer they came, every bird in the forest, whether they had been gliding in the hunt on silent wings or roosting asleep; they came fluttering upward in their thousands through the tumbling air.

From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman