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roast definition

roast (rōst)

transitive verb

  1. to cook (something) with little or no moisture, as in an oven, over an open fire, or in hot embers to roast a chicken, an ox, an ear of corn, etc.
  2. to dry, parch, or brown (coffee, etc.) by exposure to heat
  3. to expose to great heat
  4. to heat (an ore) in a furnace in the presence of oxygen or air so as to form oxides
  5. to warm (oneself), as at a fireplace
  6. Informal to criticize severely or ridicule without mercy

Etymology: ME rosten < OFr rostir < Frank *raustjan, akin to OHG rosten < rost, gridiron, roast

intransitive verb

  1. to roast meat, etc.
  2. to be cooked by being roasted
  3. to be or become very hot

noun

  1. something roasted; esp., roasted meat or a piece of roasted meat
  2. a cut of meat for roasting
  3. a roasting or being roasted
  4. ☆ a picnic at which food is roasted and eaten a steer roast
  5. Informal
    1. severe criticism or ridicule
    2. ☆ an entertainment at which a person, esp. a celebrity, undergoes severe but playful criticism

adjective

roasted roast pork

Related Forms:

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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