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# roach

«roach» in Mova's school dictionary: **A cockroach: a flat brown insect that runs fast and lives…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

noun (a roach, roaches; for the fish the plural is often roach)

### meaning for a pupil

1) (USA, Canada, informal) A cockroach: a flat brown insect that runs fast and lives in dirty kitchens and warm places. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#m1)

2) A small silver freshwater fish with reddish eyes and fins, common in rivers, lakes and canals in Britain and Europe. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#m2)

3) (slang) The end of a cannabis cigarette; drug slang, not a word for school. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In North America «roaches» is the everyday word for cockroaches, pests that spread germs, so keeping food covered and kitchens clean is a health lesson. In Britain and Ireland a roach is a fish that anglers catch in rivers and canals, the kind of fish that swims in the river in The Wind in the Willows. Cockroaches are also a science fact: they are very tough insects with six legs.

### examples

- (USA) We saw a roach run under the fridge. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x1)
- Keep food in boxes so roaches don't get in. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x2)
- Grandad caught a roach in the canal. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x3)
- The roach has a silver body and red eyes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x4)
- Roach and perch swam in the clear river. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x5)
- Cockroaches, or roaches, have six legs like all insects. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x6)
- The exterminator came to get rid of the roaches. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x7)
- Well, one Sunday morning he was fishing as usual, and not a salmon had risen to him, his basket was bare of roach or dace. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/#x8)

### note

Short for cockroach in North America; in the UK say cockroach for the insect. Plural for the insect: roaches; for the fish: roach or roaches. The myth that cockroaches would be the only survivors of anything is exaggerated.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «roach» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/R/roach/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.