roost
noun
a perch upon which birds or fowls rest at night.
roost
American
[roost]
/ rust /
noun
-
roosts
plural
-
a perch upon which birds or fowls rest at night.
-
a large cage, house, or place for fowls or birds to roost in.
-
a place for sitting, resting, or lodging.
verb (used without object)
-
roosts,
present (3rd person singular)
-
roosted,
past participle, past
-
roosting
present participle
-
to sit or rest on a roost, perch, etc.
-
to settle or stay, especially for the night.
idioms
-
rule the roost, to be in charge or control; dominate.
It was only too apparent that his grandfather ruled the roost.
-
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
-
a place, perch, branch, etc, where birds, esp domestic fowl, rest or sleep
-
a temporary place to rest or stay
-
See rule
verb
-
(intr) to rest or sleep on a roost
-
(intr) to settle down or stay
-
to have unfavourable repercussions
Roost
2
British
/ ruːst /
noun
roost
More Idioms
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
roostsimple
-
roostssimple
-
have roostedperfect
-
has roostedperfect
-
am roostingprogressive
-
are roostingprogressive
-
is roostingprogressive
-
have been roostingperfect progressive
-
has been roostingperfect progressive
Past
-
roostedsimple
-
had roostedperfect
-
was roostingprogressive
-
were roostingprogressive
-
had been roostingperfect progressive
Future
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.
Vocabulary lists containing roost
Words of a Feather: Unflappable Avian Vocabulary
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Tears of a Tiger
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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:
“And I think that’s going to accelerate in the back half of the year, when these high energy costs and fertilizer costs come to roost for our major agricultural producers,” he added.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026
The third case involved covert surveillance at a hen harrier roost in the Yorkshire Dales where investigators captured evidence of a planned attempt to kill one of the UK's rarest birds of prey.
From BBC ● May 25, 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
He scurried out of the shed and ran toward the chicken roost.
From "The Black Cauldron" by Lloyd Alexander
“Jackie and Shadow were not in the Roost Tree this morning,” wrote Sandy Steers, executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, Saturday.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2025
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
I didn’t go all the way up to Buzzard’s Roost.
From "Winger" by Andrew Smith
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
"Protecting these maternity roosts, or promoting them where they do not yet exist, is an important part of conservation."
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 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
Two out of the three roosts have been sprayed.
From BBC ● Feb. 12, 2023
“At any rate, she’s the only one I have trouble with. She’s wily, that one. Always does her own thing, never roosts with the others. She gave me these.”
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
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
The team found the chimps were hardly alone in feeding on the guano, which came from a colony of Noack’s roundleaf bat that roosted in the tree.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 22, 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
The paper birds, as if by some signal, lifted in one great flutter of wings and roosted next to the girl.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
A rare species of breeding bat has been found roosting in woodland near a reservoir.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
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
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
It was like being a member of a band of starlings, or of roosting rooks.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
