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Glite Dictionary
🤝 To persuade 🚧 To enclose
to rope in

to rope in

4.3
Mark an area with a rope to keep people out
  • phrasal verb
  • /roʊp ɪn/
translation icon : delimitar
  • The workers will rope in the area where the construction will take place to keep people away.

Examples

  • During the event, they roped in a section of the park for exclusive use by the attendees.

  • They decided to rope in the garden to protect it from animals getting in.

  • AFAIK, the latest person to create a mythology that took was Neil Gaiman, and his Sandman epic ropes in everything but the kitchen sink.

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Synonyms

to cordon off
vsto rope in
20 6.3

Stop people entering or leaving an area by using police and barriers

encloses or divides an area without the formal prevention by authorities
to rope off
vsto rope in
3 4.8

To keep people out of an area by putting ropes around it

encloses or divides an area without necessarily aiming to prevent entry

Antonyms

to open
∞ 1.0

To make something not closed so you can get in

How Enclosed

to seal off
47 3.9
to cordon off
20 6.3
to rope in
4.3
to mark off
1 3.4

Surface Forms

rope in infinitive
roped in past
roped in past participle
roping in present participle
ropes in third person singular

Morphology

rope + in

The sense 'to enclose or mark an area by placing a rope around it' is directly inferable from 'rope' (a cord for tying) plus 'in' (indicating being inside or within boundaries); the particle simply marks the area as the enclosed/inside space. This composition follows a straightforward English verb + particle pattern and is easily deducible by a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.

Etymology

Rope in comes from using a rope to mark what is in an area, for example when police put ropes around a street to keep people away. So, to rope in an area means 'to enclose or separate an area by placing a rope around it'.