roofed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of roof.

   The builders roofed the cottage before the rain set in.

   Most of the houses on the street were roofed with slate.

   Note

   One spelling does three jobs: past tense, past participle, and the adjective "having a roof". In the passive (roofed with slate) the line between verb and adjective blurs. The form carries every sense of the verb, including the slang "to imprison", so he was roofed can mean he was locked up. It also covers crossing buildings by their rooftops, as in they roofed their way across town.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having a roof, or having a roof of a particular type or material.

   The newly roofed barn could finally shelter the animals through winter.

   A glass-roofed atrium let sunlight pour into the lobby below.

   Similarcovered

   Oppositeroofless, open

   Note

   An adjective built straight from the noun: Middle English rofed, roof plus -ed, which displaced an older Old English hrēfed that survives in unoferhrēfed, "unoverroofed". Its working life is in compounds that name the covering, such as slate-roofed, glass-roofed and flat-roofed, hyphenated before a noun. It takes no degrees. A building is roofed or it is not, never more roofed.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2