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Brit. /
r
k(
)ri/, U.S. /rkri/ [< ROOK n.1 + -ERY suffix.
In the following quot., given in O.E.D. Suppl. (1982) as an earlier example of sense 3b, the meaning of the word is unclear, but it is perhaps connected with ROOK v.2:
1792 G. GALLOWAY Poems 74 Then I begin my follies to repent, With naked elbows and a coat thread bare... So for to hide my gold I need no bags, While like to rookry dogs I'm cloth'd with rags.]
I. A place where rooks or other animals live
1. a. A group of rooks' nests constituting a breeding colony, usually high in a tree.
1704 R. A
BENELL Let. in D. Defoe
Storm 106 At Helford, two Miles from us, a Rookery of Elms, was most of it tore up by the Roots.
1725 Family Dict. (at cited word), They are commonly Groves and tall Trees near Gentlemens Houses in the Country that make your Rookeries.
1772 T. SIMPSON Vermin-killer 21 Gentlemen keep rookeries for the sake of hearing a continual noise.
1822 SCOTT Fortunes of Nigel II. v. 112 Like crows upon a falcon that strays into their rookery.
1842 TENNYSON Locksley Hall in
Poems (new ed.) II. 99 The many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.
1883 Congregational Year Bk. 58 To many, Church questions seem as trivial as the politics of a rookery.
1928 Times 8 Mar. 17/6 The din of a rookery at nesting-time sounds to us an aimless hubbub.
2002 Spectator (Nexis) 15 June 28 A gathering of up to 40 pies in a rookery is an ill omen for other birds, as well as for humans.
b The realm of rooks. Obs. rare.
1738 Gentleman's Mag. 8 June 301/2 This seemed to be no Breach of the Laws of Rookery, and was, I saw, practised by every one of the Rest.
2. a. A breeding colony of sea birds, esp. penguins, on or close to the coast. Later also: a breeding colony of wading birds. Occas. in extended use with reference to other birds.
1817 A. D
ELANO Narr. Voy & Trav. Northern & Southern Hemispheres xv. 262 These two kinds [of penguins] lay their eggs on the ground in rookeries, as will be described hereafter.
1838 E. A. POE Narr. A. G. Pym xiv. 130 Navigators have agreed in calling an assemblage of such encampments [of albatrosses]
a rookery.
1880 L. WALLACE Ben Hur IV. i. 174 Their palace was sealed up, and is now a rookery for pigeons.
1910 Auk 27 315 This rookery had been raided by plumers, and several piles of egret bodies, denuded of plumes, were found among the bushes.
1976 D. B
LOOD Rocky Mountain Wildlife I. ii. 140 Many great blue herons congregate in their noisy rookeries.
2007 Daily Tel. 26 Feb. 9/1 There are no penguins, however, showing that it takes many more years for their rookeries to move and become established.
b. A breeding colony of seals or sea lions; (also) a beach used as a breeding ground by sea turtles.
1831 J. B
ISCOE Jrnl 19 Nov. in R. McNab
Old Whaling Days (1913) 418 They had only seen a few seal, it was thought these were only stragglers from some Rookery near at hand.
1847 J. C. ROSS Voy. Antarctic Reg. I. 47 Some of their [
sc. seals'] haunts, or as the sealers term them ‘rookeries’.
1881 Nature 29 Dec. 205/2 The ‘rookery’ of the sea-bears, still found in abundance on St. Paul's Island.
1932 S. ZUCKERMAN Social Life Monkeys v. 69 Bull seals fight each other..for territory in the rookery or mating ground.
1994 Sci. Amer. May 16/2 The government of Orissa is completing a fishing jetty within eight miles of the turtle rookery.
2002 G. M. E
BERHART Mysterious Creatures II. 381/2 The largest rookeries are found in Britain in the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetland Islands.
II. In extended uses.
3. a. A region or place containing a dense aggregation of people or things of the same kind.
1713 T. PARNELL in
Guardian 27 May (1714) I. 412 We now marched forward through the Rookery of Rumours, which flew thick and with a terrible din around us.
1765 J. BROWN Christian Jrnl. 42 Is not this wood the peopled rookery of my God?
1828 Gentleman's Mag. July 60/1 We know that we shall disturb the whole rookery of connoisseurs, but we will speak as we feel.
1864 J. F. W. HERSCHEL Familiar Lect. Sci. Subj. 34 Java itself I should observe is one rookery of volcanoes.
1892 Nation 55 480/1 The Inns of Court and of Chancery..have been..an immemorial rookery for authors.
1899 E.
. S
OMERVILLE & ‘M. R
OSS’
Some Experiences Irish R.M. 252 Dr. Fahy's basement storey, with the rookery of paying guests asleep above.
1922 R. W. C
HILD Hands of Nara v. 58 No. 18 Grekovskaya had been a rookery for numbers of stray individuals billeted by Soviet orders.
1972 P. M. K
EAN Love Vision & Debate iii. 107 The work of the rookery of writers who people her house.
2008 J. C
HARYN Johnny One-eye 24 The college was a rookery for Loyalists.
b. A dense collection of housing, esp. in a slum area; (also) a lodging house with overcrowded quarters.
1824 European Mag. Nov. 404/2 The place is called the Rookery, and extends from Tottenham Court Road on the west to Charlotte-street on the east, is bounded by Holborn on the south, and Russell-street on the north. This is one of the greatest receptacles in the metropolis for wicked characters.
1829 Farmer's Jrnl. 14 Sept. 294 This court is known by the name of the ‘Rookery’, (from there being a humble family in each room).
1836 Proc. Old Bailey 13 July 261 It is a
lodging-house
I do not know how many people lodge there besides
meit is not what is called a
rookery.
1862 J. B
INNY in H. Mayhew
London Labour (new ed.) Extra vol. 331/1 We..visited Market Street,..a well-known rookery of prostitutes.
1887 A. JESSOPP Arcady Introd. p. xiii, A dozen families are..in a rookery which grew up on the edge of a piece of waste.
1925 Amer. Mercury Aug. 483/2 The last redoubt of the true Bohemians, a rookery in Polk street, has been torn down to make room for the ornate New Babylonia.
1973 N.Y. Law Jrnl. 4 Sept. 5/3 Look at the city's unrepairable slums housing miserably over a million people... These rookeries are beyond repair.
1998 S. WATERS Tipping Velvet xii. 275 Where were you born? Was it some hard place? Was it some
rookery, where you must sleep ten to a bed with your sisters?
c. Mil. slang. The part of a barracks occupied by subalterns. Obs. rare.
1860 J. C. HOTTEN Dict. Slang (ed. 2),
Rookery, in Military slang, that part of the barracks occupied by subalterns, often by no means a pattern of good order.
4. regional and slang. A row, a disturbance.
c1820 Oh, What a Row! (song), People toiling, roasting, boiling, bless us! such a rookery.
1824 Spirit of Public Jrnls. (1825) 416 At this moment there was a terrible rookery and noise outside the court.
1838 W. HOLLOWAY Dict. Provincialisms (at cited word), ‘To make a rookery’ is to make a great stir about anything.
1896 Jrnl. Amer. Folklore 9 30 She [
sc. a Newfoundland lady] has her choice among such phrases as,
all in a reeraw,
all in a floption, or
all in a rookery.
1925 Dial. Notes 5 340
Rookery, confusion, ruckus.
1942 L. V. BERREY & M. V
AN DEN B
ARK Amer. Thes. Slang §5/1
Disorder n.,..riz-raz, rookery, [etc.].
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