roe

Meaning

Noun

• The eggs of fish.
• The sperm of certain fish.
• The ovaries of certain crustaceans.
• A mottled appearance of light and shade in wood, especially in mahogany.

Related

Similar words

• milt

Origin

• From Middle English rowe, rowne, roun, rawne, from Old English *hrogn, from Proto-Germanic *hrugnaz, *hrugną, from Proto-Indo-European *krek-. Cognate with Dutch roge, German Low German Rögen, German Rogen, Danish rogn, ravn, Swedish rom, Icelandic hrogn, Lithuanian kurkulaĩ, Russian кряк.
• From Middle English ro, roa, from Old English rā, rāha, from Proto-Germanic *raihô, *raihą (compare Saterland Frisian Räi, Dutch ree, German Reh), from *róyko-, from Proto-Indo-European *rey- ("spotted, streaked") (compare Irish riabh ‘stripe, streak’, Latvian raibs ‘spotted’, Russian рябо́й.