adjective
Other Word Forms
- rootlessness noun
Etymology
Origin of rootless
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English roteles; root 1, + -less ( def. )
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
It’s been a very long while since a show featuring a rootless protagonist managed to keep its edge and relatability without doing itself in with narrative drift.
From Salon
Most famously, there was "The Future," released in 1992 at the moment of liberal democracy’s supposed global triumph, which offered an eerie forecast of a rootless new century, struggling with the loss of existential meaning:
From Salon
Cher grew up with a rootless backdrop that included her mother’s ever-shifting array of husbands, all the while traveling, nomad-like, from one place to another with stints in Pennsylvania, Texas, California and New York.
From Salon
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
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.
