Meaning

• The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.

  "This tree's roots can go as deep as twenty metres underground."

• A root vegetable.

• The part of a tooth extending into the bone holding the tooth in place.

  "Root damage is a common problem of overbrushing."

• The part of a hair under the skin that holds the hair in place.

  "The root is the only part of the hair that is alive."

• The part of a hair near the skin that has not been dyed, permed, or otherwise treated.

  "He dyed his hair black last month, so the grey roots can be seen."

• The primary source; origin.

  "The love of money is the root of all evil."

• Of a number or expression, a number which, when raised to a specified power, yields the specified number or expression.

  "The cube root of 27 is 3."

• A square root (understood if no power is specified; in which case, “the root of” is often abbreviated to “root”).

  "Multiply by root 2."

• A zero (of an equation).

• The single node of a tree that has no parent.

• The primary lexical unit of a word, which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Inflectional stems often derive from roots.

• (philology) A word from which another word or words are derived.

• The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.

• The lowest place, position, or part.

• In UNIX terminology, the first user account with complete access to the operating system and its configuration, found at the root of the directory structure; the person who manages accounts on a UNIX system.

  "I have to log in as root before I do that."

• The highest directory of a directory structure which may contain both files and subdirectories.

  "I installed the files in the root directory."

• A penis, especially the base of a penis.

Meaning

• To grow roots; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.

  "The cuttings are starting to root."

• To prepare, oversee, or otherwise cause the rooting of cuttings

  "We rooted some cuttings last summer."

• To be firmly fixed; to be established.

• To get root or priviledged access on a computer system or mobile phone, often through bypassing some security mechanism.

  "I want to root my Android phone so I can remove the preinstalled crapware."