rutty

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹʌti/
• Rhymes: -ʌti

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Etymology 1

rut +‎ -y

Adjective

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

Adjective

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

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

Noun

rutty (plural rutties or ruttys or ruttees)

1. (India, obsolete) A unit of weight used for metals, precious stones and medicines, equivalent to 1+¹⁄₂ 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 […]