Skip to the word

Added 9 October 2026

rover

/ˈɹəʊvə/ noun

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about rover at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

Someone who leads a wandering unsettled life.
An adult member of the Boy Scouts movement.

Origin

From rove (“to roam, wander; (archery) to shoot an arrow randomly”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns from verbs). Rove is derived from Late Middle English *roven, rove (“to wander”); further etymology uncertain, possibly an English Midlands variant of Northern England raven, rave (“to rove, stray, wander”), possibly from Old Norse ráfa (“to roam, wander”) (although rove and rave are only attested much later), possibly from Proto-Germanic *wabōną, *wabjaną (“to cause to weave; to entangle, wrap”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

Back to today's word