Definition of "rook" [rook]

• An Old World bird (Corvus frugilegus) that resembles the North American crow and nests in colonies near the tops of trees. (noun)
• A swindler or cheat, especially at games. (noun)
• To swindle; cheat: Customers are afraid of being rooked by unscrupulous vendors. (verb-transitive)
• A chess piece that may move in a straight line over any number of empty squares in a rank or file. Also called castle. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I think the last white rook is behind the white king"
• "The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot."
• "Today, the name of the 'ruhkh' lives on in western chess as the "rook" - although the piece was converted to a tower or "castle" in western terminology; and in northern India and Pakistan many men are named after the 'shah ruhkh' including famous Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan."