Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🛼 Shoes with wheels 🛼 To skate on wheels
to roller skate

to roller skate

4 2.7
To move on shoes that have small wheels under them for fun or sport
  • verb
  • /ˈroʊlər skeɪt/
translation icon : patinar
  • We were at Balboa park, and you taught me how to roller skate.
  • learn to roller skate
  • playing on roller skates
  • used to roller skate

Examples

  • We would put on makeup, dress up, and then roller skate, yes, roller skate backwards and forwards in front of their house.

    Blog text (10)

  • Kids at the skate rink were excited to roller skate during the weekend.

  • I roller skate a lot.

    Accidental Love (2015)

  • Where do children roller skate?

    Fiction book (1992)

  • "I used to roller-skate down this hill," she said.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • A small girl roller skates down a dimly lit corridor.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • On sunny afternoons, my friends and I love to roller skate at the park.

  • She practiced for hours to learn how to roller skate without falling.

Synonyms

to skate
vsto roller skate
305 1.0

To move smoothly using shoes with blades or wheels on a smooth surface

focuses specifically on moving using shoes with wheels rather than blades
to rollerblade
vsto roller skate
7 3.7

To move on skates with wheels in one line

is similar but uses shoes with wheels arranged differently

Antonyms

to stand still
75 1.0

Stay upright in one place without moving

How Fast

to roller skate
4 2.7
to skate
305 1.0
to glide
89 2.9

Surface Forms

roller skate infinitive
roller skated past
roller skated past participle
roller skating present participle
roller skates third person singular

Morphology

roller + skate

The meaning 'to move on shoes with wheels' is directly derivable from combining 'roller' (a wheel) with 'skate' (a shoe or boot for gliding); the compound literally describes a skate that uses rollers. This compositional, descriptive pattern is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the verb meaning.

Etymology

Roller skate as a verb comes from the noun: it means to put on shoes with small wheels and move on them. Imagine putting on those shoes and sliding along the pavement, so the verb means 'to move on shoes with wheels'.