Rousts

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Causes someone or something to go away or leave a place forcefully or abruptly ; awakens someone from sleep or rest
2. Drives out or expels from a location involuntarily ; causes a person to become alert or awake from slumber
3. Compels a person or animal to depart suddenly or unwillingly ; breaks the state of sleep to bring someone to consciousness

Etymology: "Rousts" is the third-person singular form of "roust", a verb meaning to drive someone out of a place or to rouse someone from sleep. The verb is a variant of "rouse", which it appears to have split from in the 1650s, and it may also have been shaped by "rout", the word for a disorderly crowd or a defeat. Its ultimate source is Old Norse "rǫst", meaning a current or stream in the sea, which is a striking distance from the sense of forcibly stirring someone up. Some of that sense of being pushed along by a force survives in the verb.

Synonyms: wake, stir, rouse, arouse, activate

Antonyms: calm, settle, quiet, soothe, put to sleep