Rod Meaning
/ɹɒd/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA straight, round stick, shaft, bar, cane, or staff.
nounA longitudinal pole used for forming part of a framework such as an awning or tent.
Sentence Examples
Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave.
Rod lives across the street from John.
He can bend an iron rod with his hands.
CEFR Practice Quiz
He used a fishing ____ to cast the line into the deep river.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The fisherman cast his ____ into the river and waited patiently for a bite.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Old English *rodd Middle English rodde English rod From Middle English rodde, from Old English *rodd or *rodde (attested in dative plural roddum (“rod, pole”)), of uncertain origin, but probably from Proto-Germanic *rudd- (“stick, club”), from Proto-Indo-European *rewdʰ- (“to clear land”). Compare Old Norse rudda (“club”). For the root, compare English rid. Presumably unrelated to Proto-Germanic *rōdō (“rod, pole”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Which makes the concept known as Rods From God the ultimate form of kinetic weaponry. This theoretical weapon would drop telephone pole sized rods of dense tungsten from a satellite in orbit.
Picking up speed with each passing second, the rod would then penetrate the ground and generate an explosion akin to a small nuclear weapon using nothing but gravity for its propulsion."
— 2025 May 12, Jeff Edwards, “Rods from God: Unleashing Orbital Kinetic Bombardment as a Theoretical Defense System”, in Mira Safety:
"So was I brought up: they tell mee, that in all my youth, I never felt rod [translating verges] but twice, and that very lightly."
— 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 8, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
"‘And this thicket, so full of a natural art, was in the immediate vicinity, within a few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc, whose boys were in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies about them in search of the bark of the sassafras.’"
— 1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt:
"In one of the villages I saw the next summer a cow tethered by a rope six rods long[…]."
— 1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod:
"A few rods farther led him past the old black Presbyterian church, with its square tower, embowered in a stately grove; past the Catholic church, with its many crosses, and a painted wooden figure of St. James in a recess beneath the gable; and past the old Jefferson House, once the leading hotel of the town, in front of which political meetings had been held, and political speeches made, and political hard cider drunk, in the days of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too.""
— 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
He used a fishing ____ to cast the line into the deep river.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The fisherman cast his ____ into the river and waited patiently for a bite.