roll one's own

English

Etymology

From cigarettes, which are available commercially rolled (i.e., with the paper around the substance being smoked) but which some prefer to roll.

Verb

roll one's own (third-person singular simple present rolls one's own, present participle rolling one's own, simple past and past participle rolled one's own)

1. (computing, informal) To create something of which an analogue is commercially available.

   My custom wordprocessor? Yeah, I could have just installed Word or OpenOffice, but I always prefer to roll my own.

Related terms

• roll-your-own