August 08, 2013
- roil (verb)
- What does it mean?
- 1 : to make cloudy or muddy by stirring up2 : to rouse the anger of
- How do you use it?
- I had to find a different place to sit while waiting for my flight because another passenger's loud cell phone conversations started to roil me.
- Are you a word wiz?
We hope we've made it clear how to use "roil." Test your word skills and see if you can pick out the sentence that uses "roil" correctly.In sentence A, the family gave visiting relatives the "royal" treatment, not the "roil" treatment. The words are pronounced the same, but "roil" is a verb and so the correct word to use in this sentence is "royal," an adjective that has a meaning of "of superior quality." The recipe in sentence C calls for "broiling" the fish, or cooking it directly under heat, not "roiling" it. In sentence D, Eva's role is to serve as a contrast to the other character, and that is the meaning of the noun "foil," not "roil." That leaves sentence B and Elijah who is easily angered, making him a target of his friends' teasing.