The OED suggests that these attestations represent a borrowing from Middle English (Third Edition, 2010). The etymon of the English lexeme remains unclear, but the OED prefers a Scandinavian etymon to the New English Dictionary’s (NED, 1909) reconstruction of an unattested Continental French verb *romir.

Both Anglo-Norman sources go back to the Bibbesworth tradition, with the original Tretiz using the more common verb rugir² instead for this passage (bibbb roth (G) 250). It is not out of the question that the Anglo-Norman borrowing of the Middle English verb romien was prompted by an original misreading of three of the four minims in the middle of roujir – an otherwise unattested but possible spelling variant of rugir².