rutty

comparative ruttier · superlative ruttiest

1. Imprinted with ruts.

   a rutty country road

   3 more examples

   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.

   1767, George Saville Carey, “The Peasant and Ant. A Fable”, in The Hills of Hybla, London: for the author, page 14

   […] old acquaintances separated by long rutty distances, or cooled acquaintances separated by misunderstandings concerning runaway calves […]

   1861, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter X, in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →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.

   1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 5, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC

   Synonyms: rutted

2. USdatedIn a rut (dull routine).

   We get lazy, then the church becomes rutty.

   1922, Edgar Hurst Cherington, chapter 23, in The Line is Busy,, New York: Abingdon Press, page 26

   2 more examples

   Constantly vary your way of doing things; avoid humdrum, rutty, and monotonous ways.

   1893, Frederick S. Parkhurst, Work and Workers: Practical Suggestions for the Junior Epworth League, New York: Hunt & Eaton, page 63

   Everywhere we see men who have gone to seed early, become rutty and uninteresting, because they worked too much and played too little.

   1913, Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, page 97

3. Related to a rut; being in a state of sexual arousal.

   I am lying here stifling in the rutty goat smell

   1970, Ramon Guthrie, “Loin de Moi …”, in Maximum Security Ward, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, page 45

   1 more example

   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.

   2001, Fred Mustard Stewart, chapter 30, in The Savages in Love and War,, New York: Forge, page 275

   Synonyms: ruttish, lustful

comparative ruttier · superlative ruttiest

1. obsoleteFull of roots.

   […] whistling reeds, that rutty Iordan laues, And with their verdure his white head embraues, To chide the windes,

   1610, Giles Fletcher, Christs Victorie, and Triumph in Heauen, and Earth, Over, and After Death, Cambridge, page 47

   1 more example

   […] the shoare of siluer streaming Themmes, Whose rutty Bancke, the which his Riuer hemmes, Was paynted all with variable flowers,

   1596, Edmund Spenser, Prothalamion, London: William Ponsonby

   Synonyms: rooty

plural rutties · plural ruttys · plural ruttees

1. IndiaobsoleteA unit of weight used for metals, precious stones and medicines, equivalent to 1+¹⁄₂ grains.

   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, [Sapphires] of ten to fifteen rutties without a flaw are common, whereas a perfect ruby of that size is hardly ever seen.

   2 more examples

   […] they immediately desired to capitulate, and sent him, by way of ransom, a perfect diamond weighing two hundred and twenty four ruttys […]

   1768, Firishta, translated by Alexander Dow, The History of Hindostan, London: T. Becket and P.A. de Hondt, Volume 2, Section 12, p. 112

   […] 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 […]

   1870, Norman Chevers, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for India, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, page 227