Meaning & use
Rookeries
Last updated
Colonies or breeding grounds of certain birds or animals, such as rooks or penguins.
See it in a sentence
Thousands of penguins gathered in noisy rookeries along the rocky coastline.
The cliffs host several seabird rookeries during the nesting season.
A note on using this word
Originally named for the nesting colonies of rooks, the term later extended metaphorically to describe dense, poor urban slums.
Words with a similar meaning
coloniesbreeding grounds
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Another way to use it
2. noun
(Historical) Densely populated, run-down urban slums.
Reformers campaigned to clear the city's notorious rookeries in the 1800s.
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