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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

roe.

Eggs of fish.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɹəʊ/UK/ˈɹoʊ/US
  1. Eggs of fish.

    uncountable · usually
  2. Sperm of certain fish.

    uncountable · usually
  3. Ovaries of certain crustaceans.

    uncountable · usually
Where this word comes from

From Middle English rowe, rowne, roun, rawne, from Old English *hrogn (“spawn, fish eggs, roe”), from Proto-Germanic *hrugnaz, *hrugną (“spawn, roe”), from Proto-Indo-European *krek- (“(frog) spawn”). Cognate with Dutch roge (“roe”), German Low German Rögen (“roe”), German Rogen (“roe”), Danish rogn, ravn (“roe”), Swedish rom (“roe”), Icelandic hrogn (“roe”), Lithuanian kurkulai̇̃ (“frog spawn”), Russian кряк (krjak, “frog spawn”).

noun/ˈɹəʊ/UK/ˈɹoʊ/US
  1. Ellipsis of roe deer.

    abbreviation · alt-of · ellipsis
  2. A mottled appearance of light and shade in wood, especially in mahogany.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English ro, roa, from Old English rā, rāha, from Proto-West Germanic *raihō, from Proto-Germanic *raihô, *raihą, from *róyko-, from Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“spotted, streaked”). See also Saterland Frisian Räi, Dutch ree, German Reh; also Irish riabh (“tripe, streak”), Latvian ràibs (“spotted”), Russian рябо́й (rjabój, “mottled fur”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.