roots

British  

/ ruːts /

adjective

1. (of popular music) going back to the origins of a style, esp in being genuine and unpretentious

   roots rock

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Roots Cultural  

1. (1976) A Pulitzer Prize –winning novel by the African-American author Alex Haley, later made into a popular television drama. It traces a black American man's heritage to Africa, where his ancestors had been captured and sold as slaves.

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Other Word Forms

• rootsy adjective

Example Sentences

Nonrhoticity in the northeastern U.S. seems to have its roots in southern England.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 26, 2026

The researchers describe this as a weakly structured stem, meaning the roots of modern humans were not one isolated population, but a loose set of connected populations with ongoing gene flow.

From Science Daily • Apr. 26, 2026

"The roots of the tree are still there," he says of the UK and US alliance.

From BBC • Apr. 24, 2026

Arborists say the trenches could destroy the roots of some of the last remaining trees and kill them.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 22, 2026

I don’t want us to grow any roots here at all.

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy