rough

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See also: Rough

English[edit]

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Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English rough, rogh, roȝe, row, rou, ru, ruȝ, ruh, from Old English rūg, rūh, from Proto-Germanic *rūhaz. Cognate with Scots ruch, rouch (“rough”), Saterland Frisian ruuch, rouch (“rough”), West Frisian rûch (“rough”), Low German ruuch (“rough”), Dutch ruig (“rough”), German rau(h) (“rough”).

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

rough (comparative rougher, superlative roughest)

  1. Not smooth; uneven.
    • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
      The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black, rocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive. Rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a small boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather heroic, before he gets to the top.
  2. Approximate; hasty or careless; not finished.
    a rough estimate
    a rough sketch of a building
    a rough plan
  3. Turbulent.
    rough sea
  4. Difficult; trying.
    Being a teenager nowadays can be rough.
  5. Crude; unrefined.
    His manners are a bit rough, but he means well.
  6. Worn; shabby; weather-beaten.
  7. Violent; not careful or subtle.
    This box has been through some rough handling.
  8. Loud and hoarse; offensive to the ear; harsh; grating.
    a rough tone
    a rough voice
  9. (of a gem) Not polished; uncut.
    a rough diamond
  10. Harsh-tasting.
    rough wine
  11. (chiefly UK, colloquial, slang) Somewhat ill; sick; in poor condition.
  12. (chiefly UK, colloquial, slang) Unwell due to alcohol; hungover.

Antonyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun[edit]

rough (plural roughs)

  1. The unmowed part of a golf course.
  2. A rude fellow; a coarse bully; a rowdy.
    • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 124:
      In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs, who had just rushed out of Fleet Street with still wet newspapers and staring placards. "Dreadful catastrophe!" they bawled one to the other down Wellington Street. "Fighting at Weybridge!"
  3. (cricket) A scuffed and roughened area of the pitch, where the bowler's feet fall, used as a target by spin bowlers because of its unpredictable bounce.
  4. The raw material from which faceted or cabochon gems are created.
  5. A quick sketch, similar to a thumbnail but larger and more detailed, used for artistic brainstorming.
  6. (obsolete) Boisterous weather.
    • 1633, Phineas Fletcher, Eclog 1. Amyntas:
      In calms you fish; in roughs use songs and dances.
  7. A piece inserted in a horseshoe to keep the animal from slipping.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

rough (third-person singular simple present roughs, present participle roughing, simple past and past participle roughed)

  1. To create in an approximate form.
    Rough in the shape first, then polish the details.
  2. (ice hockey) To commit the offense of roughing, i.e. to punch another player.
  3. To render rough; to roughen.
  4. To break in (a horse, etc.), especially for military purposes.
    • 1802, Charles James, A New and Enlarged Military Dictionary:
      To Rough Horses, a word in familiar use among the dragoons to signify the act of breaking in horses, so as to adapt them to military purposes.
  5. To endure primitive conditions.
    to rough it
    • 1920, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Escape”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 280:
      “ […] Oh, but my husband is never so happy as when he is travelling. He likes roughing it. . . . My husband. . . . My husband. . . .”
    • 2013, Anne-Marie K. Kittiphanh, If Life Gave Me LEMONS, I Would Turn It into HONEY, →ISBN:
      I was able to help Trudy set up camp and everything else, of course there are different ways to camp the usual comfortable way or roughed we of course roughed it and I did my best to keep warm.
  6. (transitive) To roughen a horse's shoes to keep the animal from slipping.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

to render rough — see roughen

Adverb[edit]

rough (comparative more rough, superlative most rough)

  1. In a rough manner; rudely; roughly.

Derived terms[edit]

Yola[edit]

Noun[edit]

rough

  1. Alternative form of rugh

References[edit]

  • Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 65
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