What does rost mean?
Rost is a rare historical or dialectal English word for roast. It can refer to food that has been roasted, such as a joint or other cooked dish, and, in older usage, to the act or process of roasting. The spelling is chiefly encountered in older texts, where it appears alongside the now-standard form roast. Its modern meaning is therefore much less common than that of roast, and the word carries a strongly archaic or regional character rather than the neutral everyday tone of its standard counterpart. The form is useful chiefly to readers of historical English and should not normally be substituted for roast in current writing. Although it resembles the modern word rust, its meaning is unrelated: rost belongs to the vocabulary of cooking, not corrosion.
A rare historical or dialectal form of roast, referring to roasted food.
"The table was laid with bread and a simple rost."
Archaic or dialectal; use roast in modern standard English.
The historical process or act of roasting.
"The cook spoke of the rost of the fowl."
Chiefly historical and uncommon in contemporary use.
Rare and uncommon; the modern equivalent is roast, whose plural is roasts.
"The old recipes mention several rosts of fowl and game."
A vanished spelling can preserve a vivid trace of everyday speech: rost is simply the old-fashioned roast.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does rost come from?
Rost is a historical English variant of roast. Its relationship with the modern form is evident from older usage, in which the two spellings could occur for the same cooking term. It has no securely established separate modern origin or distinctive productive family beyond the standard form roast.
How rost is actually used
Rost is archaic or dialectal and is not normally used in contemporary standard English; roast is the modern form.
Easily confused with rost
Rost is a rare historical form of roast, whereas rust is the reddish-brown corrosion formed on metal.