rob [ME] The words rob and robe [ME] come from the same ancient Germanic root, a word meaning ‘booty’—clothing would have been the kind of property stolen in a raid. Reave is an old variant. Those who are bereaved [OE] have been robbed of something precious—bereft is the old form of the word. A rover [ME] was originally from another form of the word, but to rove [LME] is a different word: it was originally a term in archery meaning ‘shoot at a casual mark of undetermined range’. This may be from dialect rave ‘to stray’, probably of Scandinavian origin. See also scottish words.