While a lot of people are opting to root their android devices to make their device their own in the true sense of the word, there are a lot of terms that you might have come across or must have read in articles and heard about, the meaning of which you might or might not know. Or maybe you roughly know what they mean but are a little confused about their exact meanings.

Have no fear, because this article will tell you what some of these frequently used rooting terms mean so that you understand rooting conversations better and also sound like a pro during rooting conversations. So here it goes:

1. Root – I know you know but we are going to being with the basics. It is a metaphor of trees used in terms of the root of your device which means getting root access. Rooting is the proces of gaining administrative or privileged access to the phone’s operating system, much like Administrative access on Windows.
2. ROM – This stand for Read Only Memory and refers to the default internal storage available on your Android phone or tablet.
3. Stock – There is not one particular meaning. Its meaning depends on the context it is used in. For example, ‘stock android’ means the pure Android firmware as found in Nexus devices and ‘stock’ can mean the factory firmware that came with your phone. Basically, if you have rooted your phone but do not like it and want it to go back to the way it was then this is what you will say, “I want my device to go back to stock”.
4. Kernel – It is the messenger between your hardware and software. Any communication that happens between the two is through kernel. There are various kernels available but they are risky and a bad one can cause damage to your phone.
5. Radio – No, it does not refer to your phone’s radio services but to that part of your phones’ firmware that controls the way you connect to your cellular provider for voice and data services.
6. Flash – It stands for installing in the rooting world, whether it is kernel or ROM that you are installing, it will be called flashing.
7. Brick – Flashing (installing) involves a risk of bricking or breaking your phone during the process. And bricking is not literally breaking the phone but its functionality being broken, in other words, without any function, your phone is nothing but a brick.
8. Recovery – The easiest term, it is that software that allows back-up and performs other system level tasks. It is quite an integral part of the rooting process, without which a lot of the data can be permanently lost.
9. Nandroid – It is a full backup of your phone system ,and needs to performed through a custom recovery. It is like a ‘control+Z’ of rooting. Should something go wrong, you can always use this backup to restore things to how they were.
10. ADB – Or Android Debug Bridge, it is that tool that helps issue commands to the phone from your computer.

Thus, these are a few commonly used terms in rooting which I’m sure you briefly knew but might not have known the exact meaning and function of. And now you know so now you will understand the functions of your android device better and should something go wrong, you might even be able to fix it yourself!