root

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
root1

▶noun

• 1 a part of a plant normally below ground, which acts as a support and collects water and nourishment.

  ■ a turnip, carrot, or other vegetable which grows as a root.

• 2 the embedded part of a bodily organ or structure such as a hair.

• 3 the basic cause, source, or origin: money is the root of all evil.

  ■ (roots) family, ethnic, or cultural origins as the reasons for one's emotional attachment to a place or community.

  ■ (as modifier roots) denoting something from a non-Western ethnic or cultural origin: roots music.

• 4 Linguistics a morpheme, not necessarily surviving as a word in itself, from which words have been made by the addition of prefixes or suffixes or by other modification.

• 5 (also root note) Music the fundamental note of a chord.

• 6 (in biblical use) a descendant.

• 7 Mathematics a number or quantity that when multiplied by itself one or more times gives a specified number or quantity.

  ■ a value of an unknown quantity satisfying a given equation.

• 8 Austral./NZ & Irish vulgar slang an act of sexual intercourse.

▶verb

• 1 (with reference to a plant or cutting) establish or cause to establish roots.

• 2 establish deeply and firmly.

  ■ (be rooted in) have as a source or origin.

• 3 (often as adj. rooted) cause to stand immobile through fear or amazement.

• 4 (root someone/thing out/up) find and get rid of someone or something.

• 5 Austral./NZ & Irish vulgar slang have sex with.

  ■ exhaust or frustrate.

– phrases
at root fundamentally.
put down roots begin to have a settled life in a place.
root and branch (of a process or operation) thorough or radical.
take root become fixed or established.

– derivatives
rootedness noun,
rootless adjective,
rootlessness noun,
rootlet noun,
root-like adjective,
rooty adjective .

– origin OE rōt, from ON rót; rel. to wort.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
root2

▶verb

• 1 (of an animal) turn up the ground with its snout in search of food.

  ■ search or rummage.

• 2 (root for) informal support enthusiastically.

  ■ (root someone on) N. Amer. informal cheer or urge someone on.

▶noun an act of rooting.

– origin OE wrōtan, of Gmc origin; rel. to OE wrōt ‘snout’.