Roving
from
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}]
from
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.
[1913 Webster]
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.
[1913 Webster]
For who has power to walk has power to rove.
--Arbuthnot.
[1913 Webster]
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).
[1913 Webster]
Fair Venus' son, that with thy cruel dart
At that good knight so cunningly didst rove.
--Spenser.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: To wander; roam; range; ramble stroll.
[1913 Webster]
from
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.
[1913 Webster]
2. A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and slightly
twisted; a rove. See 2d {Rove}, 2.
[1913 Webster]
{Roving frame}, {Roving machine}, a machine for drawing and
twisting roves and twisting roves and winding them on
bobbin for the spinning machine.
[1913 Webster]
from
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
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