roommate
Americannoun
-
roommates
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of roommate
Explanation
Someone who shares a dorm room or an apartment with you is your roommate. Even if you live in a big house, the people who share it with you — and split the rent — are your roommates. If you live in a dormitory when you go to college, you'll probably have at least one roommate, and even after college it's common to share an apartment or house with roommates. You can call the campers in your cabin at summer camp roommates, though you could also call them cabin mates. The word roommate was a late eighteenth century American English invention.
Vocabulary lists containing roommate
List 1
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List 9
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Live with a parent, rent a small apartment with a roommate or two, or even better, buy a duplex and rent out the other side to help pay the mortgage.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 7, 2026
Karnofsky was once Amodei's roommate, and is now married to his sister Daniela, who co-founded Anthropic with him.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
Her roommate told the university that as time went on, Doe "kind of came to realise that it was something bad. And that she didn't really enjoy her time there".
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
Alex Hubben made it a priority, and he was willing to take on a roommate to do it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 20, 2026
They put up a curtain in the center of the room, and my parents lived on one side with Nation, and our roommate, Mr. Dambudzo, lived on the other.
From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda
A company later acquired the home but also didn’t make repairs, pushing Raj and her roommates out.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 6, 2026
A few times she moved to live with roommates to bring down the cost of renting.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
Freeman, on the other hand, started the season in triple A. But that didn’t split up the roommates.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026
In November, Davis suggested the roommates break out of their rut by working their way through the cuisines of every country in the world at local restaurants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
His roommates were rushing around, getting dressed and brushing their teeth.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
