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Glite Dictionary
to call roll

to call roll

1 3.4
To read a list of names aloud to check who is present
  • phrasal verb
  • /kɔl roʊl/
  • US
translation icon : pasar lista
  • The teacher will call roll at the beginning of class to check attendance.

Examples

  • District Justice Douglas B. Gerwick calls roll for the first of the day's two sessions of preliminary hearings.

    Academic text (2001)

  • I went into panic mode and didn't even call roll or warm them up properly.

    Academic text (2008)

  • Apologies to anyone I missed; my point isn't to call roll but to say that if we can turn the page, there is much to get excited about.

    Blog text (25)

  • Before starting the lesson, she always makes sure to call roll and note who is present.

  • He forgot to call roll during the meeting, so not everyone was counted.

Surface Forms

call roll infinitive
called roll past
called roll past participle
calling roll present participle
calls roll third person singular

Morphology

call + roll

The meaning 'to read aloud a list of names' is directly compositional from 'call' (to summon or speak to) plus 'roll' (a roster/list); together they naturally yield the action of calling a list of names. This pattern (call + list/roster) is common cross-linguistically and follows standard English verb + noun composition, so a B1 learner who knows both constituent senses would very likely understand the MWE.

Etymology

Call roll comes from classrooms where a teacher reads a list of names out loud. The teacher would call each name from the roll, a list of names, and students would answer 'present', so call roll came to mean 'to check who is present'.