Meanings
- alternativehumorousAlternative form of uh-oh.
“Ruh-roh. Work, wheels.”
2021 May 9, Tim McAuliffe, “When You Lose, You Win” (6:24 from the start), in Bless the Harts, season 2, episode 21, spoken by Betty Hart (Maya Rudolph)3 more examples
After we finished securing the motherboard, we planned to shoot an image of the rear I/O panel to show that none of the grounding tabs were obstructing ports. Ruh-roh. When we got down to shoot a close-up, we were surprised to see that both Gigabit Ethernet ports were obstructed, […]
2007, Robert Thompson, Barbara Fritchman Thompson, Building the Perfect PC, O'Reilly, published 2007, →ISBN, page 228Ruh-roh, Posey thought. Something was about to hit the fan.
2011, Kristan Higgins, Until There Was You, Harlequin, published 2011, →ISBNMissy makes a face. “Ruh-roh. He sounds mad."
2012, Roxanne St. Claire, Don't You Wish, Delacorte Press, published 2012, →ISBN, page 352
Origin
First used by Astro on the cartoon The Jetsons and later by Scooby-Doo in the Scooby-Doo cartoon series; both characters are dogs who speak broken English with the insertion of many r's.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
ruh-roh. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ruh-roh
“ruh-roh.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ruh-roh. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ruh-roh,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ruh-roh.
Source: ruh-roh on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.