[syn: mobile, nomadic, peregrine, roving, wandering]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Rove \Rove\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Roved; p. pr. & vb. n.
Roving.] [Cf. D. rooven to rob; akin to E. reave. See
Reave, Rob.]
1. To practice robbery on the seas; to wander about on the
seas in piracy. [Obs.] --Hakluyt.
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2. Hence, to wander; to ramble; to rauge; to go, move, or
pass without certain direction in any manner, by sailing,
walking, riding, flying, or otherwise.
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For who has power to walk has power to rove.
--Arbuthnot.
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3. (Archery) To shoot at rovers; hence, to shoot at an angle
of elevation, not at point-blank (rovers usually being
beyond the point-blank range).
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Fair Venus' son, that with thy cruel dart
At that good knight so cunningly didst rove.
--Spenser.
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Syn: To wander; roam; range; ramble stroll.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Roving \Rov"ing\, n.
1. The operatin of forming the rove, or slightly twisted
sliver or roll of wool or cotton, by means of a machine
for the purpose, called a roving frame, or roving machine.
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2. A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and slightly
twisted; a rove. See 2d Rove, 2.
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Roving frame, Roving machine, a machine for drawing and
twisting roves and twisting roves and winding them on
bobbin for the spinning machine.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Roving \Rov"ing\, n.
The act of one who roves or wanders.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
roving
adj 1: migratory; "a restless mobile society"; "the nomadic
habits of the Bedouins"; "believed the profession of a
peregrine typist would have a happy future"; "wandering
tribes" [syn: mobile, nomadic, peregrine, roving,
wandering]
n 1: travelling about without any clear destination; "she
followed him in his wanderings and looked after him" [syn:
wandering, roving, vagabondage]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
156 Moby Thesaurus words for "roving":
Wanderjahr, aberrant, aberrative, adrift, afloat,
afoot and lighthearted, aimless, aimlessness, alternating,
amorphous, bumming, by the way, capricious, changeable, changeful,
circuitous, circumforaneous, departing, desultoriness, desultory,
deviable, deviant, deviating, deviative, deviatory, devious,
digressive, digressiveness, discursion, discursive, discursiveness,
divagation, divagatory, dizzy, drifting, eccentric, episodic,
errant, errantry, erratic, excursive, fast and loose, fickle,
fitful, flickering, flighty, flitting, floating, fluctuating,
footloose, footloose and fancy-free, freakish, fugitive, gadding,
giddy, gypsy-like, gypsyish, hoboism, impetuous, impulsive,
inconsistent, inconstant, indecisive, indirect, infirm, irregular,
irresolute, irresponsible, itineracy, itinerancy, labyrinthine,
landloping, loose, maundering, mazy, meandering, mercurial,
migrational, migratory, moody, nomad, nomadic, nomadism,
out-of-the-way, perambulatory, peregrination, pererration,
peripatetic, planetary, ramble, rambling, ranging, restless, roam,
roaming, rove, scatterbrained, serpentine, shapeless, shifting,
shifty, shuffling, snaky, spasmodic, spineless, straggling, stray,
straying, strolling, swerving, traipsing, transient, transitory,
transmigratory, turning, twisting, unaccountable, uncertain,
uncontrolled, undependable, undirected, undisciplined, unfixed,
unpredictable, unreliable, unrestrained, unsettled, unstable,
unstable as water, unstaid, unsteadfast, unsteady, vacillating,
vagabond, vagabondage, vagabondia, vagabondism, vagrancy, vagrant,
variable, veering, vicissitudinary, vicissitudinous, volatile,
wandering, wanderlust, wanton, wavering, wavery, wavy, wayfaring,
wayward, whimsical, winding, wishy-washy, zigzag