rutty

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Pronunciation

[edit]

Etymology 1

[edit]

From rut +‎ -y.

Adjective

[edit]

rutty (comparative ruttier, superlative ruttiest)

  1. Imprinted with ruts.
    Synonym: rutted
    a rutty country road
    • 1767, George Saville Carey, “The Peasant and Ant. A Fable”, in The Hills of Hybla[2], London: for the author, page 14:
      But I’m oblig’d each day to roam
      Many a furlong from my home,
      And cry, good luck, whene’er I pick
      From off the ground a single stick;
      Or, in some long and rutty lane,
      I find by chance a single grain.
    • 1861, George Eliot, Silas Marner[3], Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Part 1, Chapter 10, p. 174:
      [] old acquaintances separated by long rutty distances, or cooled acquaintances separated by misunderstandings concerning runaway calves []
    • 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 5, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC:
      We drove way out to the desert the other side of town and turned on a rutty dirt road that made the car bounce as never before.
  2. (US, dated) In a rut (dull routine).
    • 1893, Frederick S. Parkhurst, Work and Workers: Practical Suggestions for the Junior Epworth League[4], New York: Hunt & Eaton, page 63:
      Constantly vary your way of doing things; avoid humdrum, rutty, and monotonous ways.
    • 1913, Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living[5], New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, page 97:
      Everywhere we see men who have gone to seed early, become rutty and uninteresting, because they worked too much and played too little.
    • 1922, Edgar Hurst Cherington, chapter 23, in The Line is Busy,[6], New York: Abingdon Press, page 26:
      We get lazy, then the church becomes rutty.
  3. Related to a rut; being in a state of sexual arousal.
    Synonyms: ruttish, lustful
    • 1970, Ramon Guthrie, “Loin de Moi …”, in Maximum Security Ward[7], New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, page 45:
      I am lying here stifling in the rutty goat smell
    • 2001, Fred Mustard Stewart, chapter 30, in The Savages in Love and War,[8], New York: Forge, page 275:
      You may even get picked up by a German soldier. They’re a rutty bunch now that they’re away from their fat frauleins and meeting some real French women.

Etymology 2

[edit]

Adjective

[edit]

rutty (comparative ruttier, superlative ruttiest)

  1. (obsolete) Full of roots.
    Synonym: rooty
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, Prothalamion[9], London: William Ponsonby:
      [] the shoare of siluer streaming Themmes,
      Whose rutty Bancke, the which his Riuer hemmes,
      Was paynted all with variable flowers,
    • 1610, Giles Fletcher, Christs Victorie, and Triumph in Heauen, and Earth, Over, and After Death[10], Cambridge, page 47:
      [] whistling reeds, that rutty Iordan laues,
      And with their verdure his white head embraues,
      To chide the windes,

Etymology 3

[edit]

From Hindi रत्ती (rattī), literally “the seed of the plant Abrus precatorius.”[1]

Noun

[edit]

rutty (plural rutties or ruttys or ruttees)

  1. (India, obsolete) A unit of weight used for metals, precious stones and medicines, equivalent to 1+12 grains.
    • 1768, Firishta, translated by Alexander Dow, The History of Hindostan[11], London: T. Becket and P.A. de Hondt, Volume 2, Section 12, p. 112:
      [] they immediately desired to capitulate, and sent him, by way of ransom, a perfect diamond weighing two hundred and twenty four ruttys []
    • 1858, Henry Yule, Narrative of the Mission [...] to the Court of Ava, London: Smith, Elder, Appendix, “Note on Metals, Minerals, &c., of Burma,” p. 348,[12]
      [Sapphires] of ten to fifteen rutties without a flaw are common, whereas a perfect ruby of that size is hardly ever seen.
    • 1870, Norman Chevers, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India[13], Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, page 227:
      [] vast numbers of infatuated wretches have accustomed themselves to consume from 6 rutties (9 grains) to a rupee’s weight (180 grains) of nearly pure opium daily []

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Henry Yule et al., Hobson-Jobson, London: John Murray, 1886, p. 587.[1]