roost
noun
a perch upon which birds or fowls rest at night.
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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)
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roosts,
present (3rd person singular)
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roosted,
past participle, past
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roosting
present participle
-
to sit or rest on a roost, perch, etc.
-
to settle or stay, especially for the night.
idioms
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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
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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 he has been patrolling the skies and the lawns since 2008, ruling the roost at the centuries old site.
From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026
And your little white lies will come home to roost.
From MarketWatch ● May 26, 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
Christopher stared as a phoenix came to roost atop a lamppost; nobody looked twice.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
The documentary was originally conceived as a 10-part series titled Home to Roost, which was to follow Ozzy and wife Sharon's "attempt to re-start their lives" in Buckinghamshire.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2025
“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
Griffin’s Roost was strong but small, and so long as they sat here they would seem small as well.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
It said "loss of or disturbance" to roosts, external in trees on the grounds, which provide shelter for bats, would result in "adverse effects" on the local populations of two common and widespread species.
From BBC ● Sep. 5, 2026
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
How about a nocturnal animal like an owl or those nighttime migrants – will they start to rustle from their roosts before they realize it’s not night?
From Salon ● Apr. 6, 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
Beyond the bat roosts, the cave became drier and dustier.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
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
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
Bats that were fleeing this human-caused disaster roosted above pigsties in Malaysia.
From Salon ● Jan. 19, 2023
His ode to his diet, “The Tea Song,” convinced Young that a peculiar talent roosted upstairs.
From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2021
The paper birds roosted on branches and stones and the remains of chimneys and walls and old buildings.
From "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill
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
Creating roosting areas for displaced bats is a statutory requirement and the costs are predominantly being met from central government funding and developer contributions.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
Expect to see and hear more chickens roosting in the next four years.
From Salon ● Mar. 31, 2025
And as part of the toll lane, they have requested Caltrans create a plan that would ensure the bats aren’t disturbed going forward, especially in their roosting season.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2024
The area was a favored roosting site for thousands of blackbirds that were feeding in nearby cornfields.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
