From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Rove \Rove\, verb (used without an object) [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.
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.
For who has power to walk has power to rove. --Arbuthnot.
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).
Fair Venus' son, that with thy cruel dart At that good knight so cunningly didst rove. --Spenser.
Syn: To wander; roam; range; ramble stroll.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Roving \Rov"ing\, noun The act of one who roves or wanders.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
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.
2. A roll or sliver of wool or cotton drawn out and slightly twisted; a rove. See 2d {Rove}, 2.
{Roving frame}, {Roving machine}, a machine for drawing and twisting roves and twisting roves and winding them on bobbin for the spinning machine.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: (of groups of people) tending to travel and change settlements frequently; "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}, {wandering}]
noun
1: travelling about without any clear destination; "she followed him in his wanderings and looked after him" [syn: {wandering}, {vagabondage}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
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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