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roast

verb · noun · adjective

Simple meaning

To cook food by heating in an oven or over a fire without covering, resulting in a crisp, possibly even slightly charred appearance.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rohst
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɹoʊst

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. transitive or intransitive or ergative

    To cook food by heating in an oven or over a fire without covering, resulting in a crisp, possibly even slightly charred appearance.

  2. transitivefiguratively

    To subject to bantering, severely criticize, sometimes as a comedy routine.

  3. transitive

    To cook by surrounding with hot embers, ashes, sand, etc.

  4. Cook with dry heat, usually in an oven

  5. transitivefiguratively

    To admonish someone vigorously.

  6. transitive or intransitive or ergative

    To process by drying through exposure to sun or artificial heat.

noun

  1. A piece of meat roasted or for roasting and of a size for slicing into more than one portion

  2. A piece of meat suited to roasting; meat that has been roasted.

  3. An instance of being severely admonished, criticized, roasted.

  4. A comical event, originally fraternal, where a person is subjected to verbal attack, yet may be praised by sarcasm and jokes.

  5. A meal consisting of roast foods.

  6. canadaus

    A social event at which food is roasted and eaten.

adjective

  1. Having been cooked by roasting.

  2. figuratively

    Subjected to roasting; bantered; severely criticized.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (transitive or intransitive or ergative) To cook food by heating in an oven or over a fire without covering, resulting in a crisp, possibly even slightly charred appearance.

Used this way, roast is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. This is a food and cooking use: everyday in kitchens and recipes.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Mild
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Cooking/food
  • Everyday conversation

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use roast

  • “We decided to roast a whole chicken for dinner tonight, and it smells delicious.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Cook

pot roastroast chickenroast turkey

Meat

roast beefroast pork

Other combinations

roast lambrib roastroast meat

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • roastingnounInflected form

    Cooking (meat) by dry heat in an oven (usually with fat added).

  • roasternounInflected form

    A harsh or humorous critic (sometimes intended as a facetious compliment).

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • roast beef plantnounCompound term

    Iris with purple flowers and foul-smelling leaves.

  • roast lambnounCompound term

    A cut of lamb suitable for roasting.

  • roast porknounCompound term

    Cut of pork suitable for roasting.

  • roast vealnounCompound term

    Cut of veal suitable for roasting.

  • roast beefnounCompound term

    Cut of beef suitable for roasting.

  • pot roastnounCompound term

    Cut of beef suitable for simmering in liquid in a closed pot.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.