roar

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English roren, also rore and, in early and northern texts, rarin,^[2][3] inherited from Old English rārian (“to wail, lament loudly; to roar, bellow”),^[4][5][6][7] inherited from Proto-West Germanic *rairōn, inherited from Proto-Germanic *rairōną (“to bellow, roar”).^[1][8] Barnhart dates the early Middle English forms to about 1200 and before 1225, and the Old English verb to before 900.^[3] It is cognate with Middle Dutch reren, Middle Low German rāren and Old High German rērēn (“to bleat”),^{[9][10][3][11]} whose modern descendant German röhren is now used only of the cry of a rutting stag,^[9] and with West Frisian roorje (“to roar”).^[1] The Germanic base is probably imitative.^{[9][7][11][3][5]} Köbler refers it to Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“to shout, bellow”),^[8][1] and Etymonline and Holthausen compare Lithuanian rieti (“to scold, shout”);^[5][12] Etymonline also compares Latin raucus (“hoarse”), all of them probably imitative as well.^[5] The noun was formed from the verb in the late 14th century,^[9][5][7] beside the older prefixed noun Old English gerār (“roaring, howling”).^[9][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English the verb was used of people, to wail or lament loudly, and of animals and devils, to roar or bellow.^[4] The OED's first evidence for the cry of a large animal is in the preface to Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels, where rārende glosses rugiens, roaring.^[9][4]

Semantic evolution

The Old English sense "to wail, weep loudly" lasted into later use chiefly in Scotland,^[9] where the dialect form was rair.^[13][2] The verb was applied to the sea, the wind and fire by about 1400;^[9][5] from the 14th century it was also used of a place echoing with noise, as in Chaucer's Knight's Tale;^[9][11] Chaucer used the verb eight times.^[14] The noun, first in Gower before 1393, was the cry of a large beast, and soon any loud, confused sound;^[9][5] Etymonline dates its use for thunder and cannon to the 1540s.^[5] From the 15th century roar also meant to revel noisily, especially when drunk,^[9] the sense behind the roaring boys and roarers of Jacobean London: Jonson wrote in 1614 of going to "roar with" a man.^[15][9] Johnson (1755) listed for the noun the cry of a lion, an outcry of distress, a clamour of merriment and the sound of the wind or sea.^[16] Laughing loudly is recorded by 1815, and a boisterous burst of laughter, as a noun, from 1675.^[5][9] Later uses include a horse's laboured breathing caused by a damaged larynx (1842) and, in curling, a stone sent fast and noisily across the ice (Burns, 1787).^[9] Since the 1920s the verb has also meant to travel in a loud motor vehicle,^[5] and since 1900 to roar on a team or runner has meant to urge them on with shouts.^[9] American slang has used a roar for an uproarious joke and for a complaint since 1896.^[15]

Timeline

• Old English – of a large animal, to utter a loud deep cry (Lindisfarne Gospels); of people, to cry out, wail.^[9][4]
• c. 1200 – Middle English rarin, and roren before 1225.^[3]
• a. 1393 – noun, the cry of a large beast or the loud cry of a person (Gower).^[9][5]
• a. 1398 – of smaller animals and birds, and of swarming bees.^[9]
• ?a. 1400 – of the sea, wind or fire, to make a loud prolonged noise.^[9]
• c. 1425 – transitive, to shout something out.^[9]
• a. 1450 – to revel noisily.^[9]
• a. 1522 – noun, the loud sound of the sea, wind or guns.^[9]
• 1675 – noun, a burst of loud laughter.^[9]
• 1787 – in curling, of a stone moving fast across the ice.^[9]
• 1815 – to laugh loudly.^[5]
• 1842 – of a horse, to breathe noisily because of a damaged larynx.^[9]
• 1900 – to roar on, to urge on with shouts.^[9]
• 1923 – to travel in a noisy motor vehicle.^[5]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. Of a lion or other large animal, to give a loud, deep, long cry.
2. Of a person or crowd, to shout loudly, as in anger, pain or triumph; also, to shout something out: The sergeant roared an order across the yard.
3. To laugh loudly and without restraint: The audience roared at the clown.
4. Of the sea, wind, fire, engines or guns, to make a loud continuous noise.
5. To move fast with a loud noise, especially in a motor vehicle: The bikes roared past the village.
6. Of a horse, to breathe with loud, rasping sounds because of disease of the larynx.

Noun

1. The loud, deep cry of a lion or other wild animal, or a loud deep cry of a person in pain, anger or excitement.
2. A loud, continuous, confused sound, as of traffic, the sea or a crowd.
3. A loud burst of laughter.

Word family

• roarer
• outroar
• rip-roaring
• roaring boy
• roaring forties

Related words

• uproar
• raucous

Usage notes

Shakespeare's "set the table on a roar" in Hamlet (1604), and "put the wild waters in this roar" in The Tempest, belong, according to Weekley and the OED, to an obsolete noun roar, uproar or tumult, which has a separate source, Middle Dutch roere.^[17][9][7] That noun is recorded from Chaucer's Troilus (before 1413) to 1681, mostly in the phrase in a roar, and is related to Ruhr and to uproar.^[9][17][7] Weekley thinks the modern "roar of laughter" partly echoes Shakespeare's use.^[17] In Suffolk to roar out something meant to do it hastily, a use the OED (2010) takes as a separate verb, probably from Middle English rore or roeren (“to stir”).^[13][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray