adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rootless
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English roteles; root 1, + -less ( def. )
Explanation
Someone who's rootless doesn't have a permanent home or place to settle down. Your rootless cousin might save money for a ticket to India and then spend years backpacking around Asia. Some plants are literally rootless, growing without a root system to absorb nutrients. Algae is one example of a rootless plant. Rootless far more commonly describes a person who wanders. An immigrant might feel a bit rootless the first few years in a new country, not quite at home yet but far from their original home. And if your family moves every couple of years, they're rootless too.
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.
Suddenly, she’s brandishing a mop and pail everywhere like a rootless knight without a quest or a horse.
From Los Angeles Times • May 23, 2025
Breached rootless cones identified in the current study show similar occurrences of polyhydrated sulfates, further suggesting the blistered volcanic blanket may be hiding a vast sheet of glacier ice underneath it.
From Science Daily • Mar. 13, 2024
Some of those leftovers are linked to the last-minute installation of rootless trees, two volunteers told The Associated Press.
From Washington Times • Oct. 24, 2023
Dispossessed of his father and fatherland, a rootless Eastern European Jew on a continent gripped by nationalist fever, Roth’s self-identity was especially tenuous.
From Washington Post • Jan. 5, 2023
Touched with gold and red the autumn trees seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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.
