ROLL A WHEEL. At the University of Vermont, in student parlance, to devise a scheme or lay a plot for an election or a college spree, is to roll a wheel. E.g. "John was always rolling a big wheel," i.e. incessantly concocting some plot.
ROOM. To occupy an apartment; to lodge; an academic use of the word.—Webster.
Inquire of any student at our colleges where Mr. B. lodges, and you will be told he rooms in such a building, such a story, or up so many flights of stairs, No. —, to the right or left.
The Rowes, years ago, used to room in Dartmouth Hall.—The
Dartmouth, Vol. IV. p. 117.
Rooming in college, it is convenient that they should have the more immediate oversight of the deportment of the students.—Scenes and Characters in College, p. 133.
Seven years ago, I roomed in this room where we are now.—Yale
Lit. Mag., Vol. XII. p. 114.
When Christmas came again I came back to this room, but the man who roomed here was frightened and ran away.—Ibid., Vol. XII. p. 114.
Rent for these apartments is exacted from Sophomores, about sixty rooming out of college.—Burlesque Catalogue, Yale Coll., 1852-53, p. 26.
ROOT. A word first used in the sense given below by Dr. Paley. "He [Paley] held, indeed, all those little arts of underhand address, by which patronage and preferment are so frequently pursued, in supreme contempt. He was not of a nature to root; for that was his own expressive term, afterwards much used in the University to denote the sort of practice alluded to. He one day humorously proposed, at some social meeting, that a certain contemporary Fellow of his College [Christ's College, Cambridge, Eng.], at that time distinguished for his elegant and engaging manners, and who has since attained no small eminence in the Church of England, should be appointed Professor of Rooting."—Memoirs of Paley.
2. To study hard; to DIG, q.v.