You can think of rove as feet that never settle. Something is moving over a wide stretch — a country, a , a city after dark — and it keeps changing where it is, with no set route and no place it has to reach. What matters is the moving, not the arriving. English then lends those restless feet to other things: to a reporter who is never at a desk, and to a pair of eyes that will not rest on one spot.
Wiktionary traces rove to Northern Middle English raven, 'to wander', from Old Norse ráfa, 'to rove, stray about'. The oldest recorded meaning is already the wandering one, so the modern uses sit directly on it rather than at the end of a long chain.
Wiktionary 把 rove 追到古北歐語 ráfa（遊蕩、四處亂走），中間經過中古英語北部的 raven（漫遊）。最早記下來的意思本來就是「到處走」，所以今天的用法等於直接站在原意上面，中間沒有繞很遠的路。
Wiktionary, entry for rove (verb, etymology 1); packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:782538134
Two branches
停不下來的腳步
這一族就是核心本身，只是那雙腳換了主人：先是人和動物在大範圍裡移動，接著換成一份到處跑的工作，最後換成一對停不住的眼睛。
verb · C1
To keep moving from place to place over a wide area, with no fixed route and no home you go back to. You can rove on its own, or rove a place: a salesman roving the country.
漫遊；四處遊走
紡紗前的那條粗紗
它跟「到處走」怎麼連起來，手上的資料沒有交代。Wiktionary 把兩者放在同一條詞源底下，卻沒有寫出中間的路，所以這裡先把它當成一個獨立的專門用法，不硬編一個故事來接。
verb · C2
In making yarn: to get wool or cotton ready for spinning by combing the fibres out into a long, loose rope and giving it a small twist. The soft rope this makes is itself called a rove, or a roving.
（紡紗）粗紡、做粗紗