Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a bed; thus go to roost v., to go to bed.

1818		W. Perry London Guide 225: Coming from roost one moring [...] I met an old acqaintance.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) xiv: The tag-rag and bob-tail squad who [...] go to roost much sounder upon a dust-hill than many of the swells can snooze upon their dabs. [Ibid.] 217: This ‘lady-bird,’ who has not only disposed of many an unruly customer in her time, but buzzed them into the bargain, is taking her drops of jackey with Old Mother Brimstone who has also toddled in to have a flash of lightning before she goes to roost. [Ibid.] 391: No more whistling for us on board the Fleet yet awhile. Poor Jerry is floored! A cold has got the best of him; and he cannot quit his roost.
1833		‘The Beak and Trap to Roost are Gone’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 48: The beak and trap to roost are gone.
1869		Sportsman (London) 30 Dec. 2/2: Notes on News [...] [T]he paupers [...] had to ‘go to roost’ at midnight.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1895		Albert Chevalier ‘Our ’Armonic Club’ 🎵 Then the Boss calls ‘time’, and the clock is striking twelve, We ’as one more booze afore we goes to roost.
1898		E. Pugh Tony Drum 65: Give me a candle, mother, I’ll go to roost.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 May 12/2: The sixpence-a-night dosser will have to be content with a portable covering on whose wheels he could hitch himself over like a hen-coop when he retired to roost.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 16/2: He’d forgotten to replace the glass eye, which he’d taken out on going to roost the previous night.
1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 May 4/2: ‘That’s my blanky roost,’ he said. ‘You’re [sic] bed, be damned, […] where the ’ell am I goin’ to sleep, then?’ ‘Dunno, […] sleep on your blanky disc, for all I care.’.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 219: I know I’m gonna call some hogs soon as I hit my roost.

2. one’s home, one’s house.

1824		Annals of Sporting 1 June 403: [He] hearkened to the Syren’s voice, accompanied by the naughty dicky-birds’ tattoo at the glaze of his roost.
1909		H. Lawson ‘Stickin’ to Bill’ in Roderick (1967–9) II 289: But, in spite of herself there is help that comes / [...] / To buy the tucker and pay the rent / Of a roost for herself and kid.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 378: roost, home.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 486: roost : house, home.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.

3. (US) the upper gallery or ‘gods’ in a theatre.

1915

H.E. Rollins ‘A West Texas Word List’ in DN IV:iii 228: roost, n. The ‘peanut’ gallery of the theatre.