▪ I. ˈrooty, n. Mil. slang.
Also rootey.
[ad. Urdū (Hindī) rōtī. Cf. roti2.]
a. Bread.
| 1883 Sala in Illustr. Lond. News 7 July 3/3 At least eight years ago I heard of a private soldier complaining..that he had not had his ‘proper section of rooty’. 1900 Kipling in J. Ralph War's Brighter Side (1901) xv. 253 And the 'umble loaf of ‘rootey’ Costs a tanner, or a bob. 1900 ‘M. Thyme’ in Ibid. xx. 316 Bully beef and rooty, and Something's give me a pain. 1957 [see jildi]. 1959 Listener 5 Mar. 406/1 Eight ounces of ‘rooty’—that is bread. |
b. rooty gong (gong2 2 a), a medal formerly awarded to members of the British Army in India (see quots.).
| 1925 Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 245 Rooty gong, long service Medal. 1936 F. Richards Old-Soldier Sahib vi. 108 The Good Conduct medal or ‘Rooty Gong’..was so called because it was a regular ration-issue, like bread or meat or boots. 1948 Partridge Dict. Forces' Slang 157 Rooty gong,..Rooti is the Indian Army word for bread, the implication being that the wearer has eaten a tremendous aggregate of Service loaves and therefore deserves it. |
▪ II. rooty, a.
(ˈruːtɪ)
Also 5 ruty, 6 rutty, 7 rootie.
[f. root n.1 + -y.]
Abounding in roots; full of roots; consisting of roots; also, belonging to or suggestive of roots.
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 314/2 Ruty, radicosus. c 1611 Chapman Iliad xvii. 654 As a syluane hill Thrusts backe a torrent... Nor can [it] with all the confluence breake through his rootie sides. 1649 W. Blithe Eng. Improver Impr. (1653) 196 Lands above measure hard, rooty, rushy, twichy, or any way unfeacible. 1713 Derham Physico-Theol. x, Such Vegetables as are weak [support themselves] by striking in their rooty Feet. 1818 Keats Endym. iv. 793 There was..not a tree, beneath whose rooty shade He had not with his tamed leopards played. 1853 G. J. Cayley Las Alforjas I. 176 Some embers which smouldered dimly round a huge rooty log. 1884 T. Hardy Wessex Tales (1889) 180 He retired down the rooty slope. 1905 E. F. Benson Image in Sand xviii. 292 The warm wind bore with it..the good, moist, rooty smell of the dusky heather. |
▪ III. rooty
var. rowty a. dial.