roust
Americanverb (used with object)
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rousts,
present (3rd person singular)
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rousted,
past participle, past
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rousting
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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roustsimple
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roustssimple
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have roustedperfect
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has roustedperfect
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am roustingprogressive
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are roustingprogressive
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is roustingprogressive
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have been roustingperfect progressive
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has been roustingperfect progressive
Past
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roustedsimple
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had roustedperfect
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was roustingprogressive
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were roustingprogressive
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had been roustingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of roust
First recorded in 1650–60; perhaps alteration of rouse 1
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:
The only thing that could roust me from my peaceful slumber was the most grotesque vision imaginable: an undulating river of red lights in front of me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2024
I’d be the guy who falls asleep at 10, waking when authorities shine spotlights and blare Kenny G songs at my house to roust me out to vote.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2024
Advocates for the homeless ardently protest efforts to roust the encampments, arguing people have nowhere else to go.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2022
The officers rushed to roust nearby residents out of their homes and clear the avenue.
From New York Times ● Jan. 1, 2022
A roust allowed Chandler to replenish his jars.
From "The Underground Railroad: A Novel" by Colson Whitehead
Sept. 16, 2019: The Tulsa Police Department finds Crawford’s body and rousts the local Nixonville.
From Slate ● Dec. 16, 2019
He rousts past Coleman and lays back for Krychowiak, arriving on the edge of the box to thunk wide.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 11, 2015
I tell you, when anybody gets into political life, ambition rousts up in 'em: path-master don't satisfy me.
From Sweet Cicely — or Josiah Allen as a Politician by Marietta Holley
But truly the word, "Woman's Suffrage," rousts him up as quick as a mouse duz a drowsy cat, so, sez he, "I can't let you go, Samantha, into any such dangerous and onwomanly affair."
From Samantha on the Woman Question by Marietta Holley
Eastern on July 20, bleary-eyed kids were rousted from their beds so they could tell their grandchildren they witnessed an epic event.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026
On Father’s Day 2002, two men showed up at the Pattersons’ California home around 4 a.m. and rousted him out of bed.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2022
One man was even rousted from sleep at 6 a.m., with helicopters circling overhead, and taken to jail in his underwear.
From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2022
One of the men rousted by the officers went up to the platform.
From New York Times ● Feb. 22, 2022
You couldn’t have rousted Ajax, Father’s prize bird dog, with a shotgun let off a foot in front of his muzzle.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
Since then, a new mayor has accelerated the pace of rousting encampments.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 17, 2022
"We're not going to solve anything by rousting people, but rather by dealing with it by creating a solution."
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2018
The years of pounding London’s streets and rousting out its ghosts are gone.
From The Guardian ● May 20, 2017
It is not as if police departments were ignoring inner-city communities before the practice of rousting suspects on drug corners was known by a fancy buzzword.
From Washington Post ● May 4, 2015
I tried rousting them by leaning into them and whispering, “Velia, Delia, wake up. Wake up girls,” but they were out cold, so I closed my eyes and prayed.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
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.
