(literally, botany) Of a plant, having deep roots.
1726, Jonathan Swift (translator), “Horace, Book I, Ode XIV” in Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, London: T. Woodward and Charles Davis, 1736, Volume 5, p. 193,
Poor floating Isle, tost on ill Fortune’s Waves,
Ordain’d by Fate to be the Land of Slaves;
Shall moving Delos now deep-rooted stand,
Thou, fixt of old, be now the moving Land?
1791, William Cowper (translator), The Odyssey, Book 13, in The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, London: J. Johnson, Volume 2, p. 302,
And now the flying bark full near approach’d,
When Neptune, meeting her, with out-spread palm
Depress’d her at a stroke, and she became
Deep-rooted stone.
Of a non-living object, deeply and firmly embedded (in the ground, etc.)
(figurative) Firmly established in thought or behavior and difficult to change.
They avoid conflict at all costs because of their deep-rooted fear of upsetting people.
1850, Charlotte Brontë, letter to Elizabeth Gaskell dated 27 August, , in Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, London: Smith, Elder, 1857, Volume 2, p. 177,
Certainly there are evils which our own efforts will best reach; but as certainly there are other evils—deep-rooted in the foundations of the social system—which no efforts of ours can touch: