roost

plural roosts

1. The place where a bird sleeps (usually its nest or a branch).

   He clapp'd his wings upon his roost.

   1700, [John] Dryden, “The Cock and the Fox: Or, The Tale of the Nun’s Priest, from Chaucer”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

2. collectiveA group of birds roosting together.

   A roost of chickens clucked excitedly in the undergrowth to the south of the Mata's enclosure, as a nocturnal snake hunted eggs

   2018, Chuma Nwokolo, The Extinction of Menai, Ohio University Press

   1 more example

   a roost of birds is merely a fortuitous aggregation of individuals that have strategically placed their roost site to minimize distance to their supplemental and main food sources

   2018, Clark E. Adams, Urban Wildlife Management, CRC Press

3. A bedroom.
4. ScotlandThe open cross-joists or inner roof of a cottage or living space.
5. Australian rules footballA kick which causes the ball to travel a long distance.
6. Synonym of perch (“a position that is secure and advantageous”).

   Synonyms: perch

present singular third person roosts · participle present roosting · participle past roosted · past roosted

1. intransitiveTo settle on a perch in order to sleep or rest.
2. figurativelyTo spend the night.

   The UPS package centre for central London, a brief walk from Kentish Town tube station, holds a below-ground bay in which 170 vans roost every night.

   2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian

3. transitiveAustralian rules footballTo kick (a ball) a long distance.

plural roosts

1. OrkneyShetlandalternativeAlternative form of roust (“a strong tide or current”).

   1 more example

   Sometimes the whole tract swung to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, for a glimpse, it would all disappear and then boil up again. What it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race, which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin.

   1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC

present singular third person roosts · participle present roosting · participle past roosted · past roosted

1. alternativeAlternative form of roust.