rutty

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Adjective

rutty (comparative ruttier, superlative ruttiest)

1. Imprinted with rut#Etymology_2|ruts.

   Synonyms: rutted#Adjective

   a rutty country road

   • 1767, George Saville Carey, “The Peasant and Ant. A Fable” in The Hills of Hybla, London: for the author, p. 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, 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, On the Road, New York: Viking, 1997, Chapter 5, p. 281,

     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, New York: Hunt & Eaton, p. 63,

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

   • 1913, Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, p. 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, The Line is Busy, New York: Abingdon Press, Chapter 23, p. 26,

     We get lazy, then the church becomes rutty.

3. Related to a rut#Etymology_1|rut; being in a state of sexual arousal.

   Synonyms: ruttish, lustful

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

     I am lying here stifling in the rutty goat smell

   • 2001, Fred Mustard Stewart, The Savages in Love and War, New York: Forge, Chapter 30, p. 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.

Adjective

rutty (comparative ruttier, superlative ruttiest)

1. (obsolete) Full of roots.

   Synonyms: rooty

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, Prothalamion, 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, Cambridge, p. 47,

     […] whistling reeds, that rutty Iordan laues,

     And with their verdure his white head embraues,

     To chide the windes,

Noun

rutty

1. (India, obsolete) A unit of weight used for metals, precious stones and medicines, equivalent to 1.5 grains.
   • 1768, Alexander Dow (translator), The History of Hindostan by Firishta, 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,

     [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, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, p. 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 […]

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