Meaning & use
rover
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Meanings
nouncountable
a vehicle built to travel over rough or unknown ground, especially one sent to explore another planet
Grammar: Countable: use 'a rover' or 'the rovers'.
Patterns
- a lunar rover
- a Mars rover
- send a rover to something
The space agency landed a rover on Mars to study the rocks.
Engineers tested the rover over sand and stone before the mission.
Pictures sent back by the rover showed a dry, dusty landscape.
nouncountableliterary
a person who travels from place to place without a permanent home
Grammar: Countable and slightly literary; often used in the plural for a group.
Patterns
- a rover and a wanderer
- roam like a rover
He lived as a rover for years, moving wherever the work took him.
The old song tells of a rover who never settles down.
Word forms
| plural | rovers |
|---|
Common combinations
- Mars rover
- The Mars rover has been sending data back for years.
- lunar rover
- Astronauts used a lunar rover to cover more ground.
- a rover on the surface
- The rover on the surface drilled into a rock and analyzed the dust.
- rover mission
- The rover mission was extended after the first successful year.
Synonyms and how they differ
- wanderer
- Wanderer refers only to a person and sounds more literary; rover can also mean a vehicle.
- nomad
- Nomad describes a person who moves with a community or herd; a rover moves more randomly and alone.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: rover or Rover?
rover vs Rover
With a capital R, Rover is a common dog name and a British car brand; the ordinary noun is spelled with a small r.
Practice
Scientists hope the ______ will find signs of water beneath the Martian surface.
Choose one answer.
A vehicle that explores a planet is a rover; 'roving' is an adjective or participle and cannot be the subject here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “rover”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.