Library / English Dictionary

ROOK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Common gregarious Old World bird about the size and color of the American crow

Synonyms:

Corvus frugilegus; rook

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("rook" is a kind of...):

corvine bird (birds of the crow family)

Holonyms ("rook" is a member of...):

Corvus; genus Corvus (type genus of the Corvidae: crows and ravens)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(chess) the piece that can move any number of unoccupied squares in a direction parallel to the sides of the chessboard

Synonyms:

castle; rook

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("rook" is a kind of...):

chess piece; chessman (any of 16 white and 16 black pieces used in playing the game of chess)

Domain category:

chess; chess game (a board game for two players who move their 16 pieces according to specific rules; the object is to checkmate the opponent's king)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Deprive of by deceit

Example:

She defrauded the customers who trusted her

Synonyms:

bunco; con; defraud; diddle; goldbrick; hornswoggle; mulct; nobble; rook; scam; short-change; swindle; victimize

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "rook" is one way to...):

cheat; chisel; rip off (deprive somebody of something by deceit)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "rook"):

short; short-change (cheat someone by not returning him enough money)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody PP

Sentence example:

They rook him of all his money

Credits

 Context examples: 

He had his old companions about him, too; for there were plenty of high trees in the neighbourhood, and two or three rooks were on the grass, looking after him, as if they had been written to about him by the Canterbury rooks, and were observing him closely in consequence.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I have associated it, ever since, with the sunny street of Canterbury, dozing as it were in the hot light; and with the sight of its old houses and gateways, and the stately, grey Cathedral, with the rooks sailing round the towers.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But there I was; and soon I was at our house, where the bare old elm-trees wrung their many hands in the bleak wintry air, and shreds of the old rooks'-nests drifted away upon the wind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As the elms bent to one another, like giants who were whispering secrets, and after a few seconds of such repose, fell into a violent flurry, tossing their wild arms about, as if their late confidences were really too wicked for their peace of mind, some weatherbeaten ragged old rooks'-nests, burdening their higher branches, swung like wrecks upon a stormy sea.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The rooks were sailing about the cathedral towers; and the towers themselves, overlooking many a long unaltered mile of the rich country and its pleasant streams, were cutting the bright morning air, as if there were no such thing as change on earth.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged old rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom of the front garden.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I went, accompanied by Mr. Wickfield, to the scene of my future studies—a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the Cathedral towers to walk with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plot—and was introduced to my new master, Doctor Strong.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As he walked up and down that part of the courtyard which was at the side of the house, with the stray rooks and jackdaws looking after him with their heads cocked slyly, as if they knew how much more knowing they were in worldly affairs than he, if any sort of vagabond could only get near enough to his creaking shoes to attract his attention to one sentence of a tale of distress, that vagabond was made for the next two days.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, one stuck full with statues, long thrown down, and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses, the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden; everywhere—on everything—I felt the same serener air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)