different between ruche vs ouche

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French ruche, from Middle French rusche, from Medieval Latin rusca (“bark”), from Gaulish *rusk?, from Proto-Celtic *r?skos (“bark”). Compare Breton rusk, Irish rúsc, Welsh rhisgl and Catalan rusc.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?u?/

Noun

ruche (plural ruches)

1. A strip of fabric which has been fluted or pleated.
2. A small ruff of fluted or pleated fabric worn at neck or wrist.
3. A pile of arched tiles, used to catch and retain oyster spawn.

Derived terms

• ruching (noun)

Verb

ruche (third-person singular simple present ruches, present participle ruching, simple past and past participle ruched)

1. To flute or pleat (fabric).
   • 1864, Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine:

     At each seam the dress opens to a-point over a silk petticoat. The skirt is ruched around the bottom and the openings, between which are bows of ribbon and lace.

   • 1899, The Country Gentleman, page 337:

     This will consist in large part of a half-dozen inexpensive flowered organdies, which she has picked up at various sales for from ten to twenty cents a yard. She has had all of them made with low waists, ruffled or ruched around the corsage, ...

   • 1984, Natalie Rothstein, Madeleine Ginsburg, Avril Hart, Four hundred years of fashion, page 138:

     The matching skirt consists of a drape of pink figured silk, tucked up at the hips to show tiers of machine-made lace frills and pleats […] It is ruched in front and has a train box-pleated into the back.

2. To bunch up (fabric); to ruck up.
   • 2014, Harriet Evans, Not Without You, Simon and Schuster (?ISBN), page 47:

     Joe Baxter pulled the dress farther down, so it was ruched around my middle, the bottom half pulled up to my stomach.

   • 2017, Laura Trentham, An Indecent Invitation: Spies and Lovers Book 1, Laura Huskins (?ISBN):

     A woman with an agonized expression on her up-turned face sat with her knees apart while a man buried his head between her legs. Her dress was ruched around her waist, and her breasts were bared. Gilmore's scandalous, erotic art.

   • 2018, Raquel Byrnes, Tremblers, Pelican Ventures Book Group (?ISBN):

     Clad in a leather bodice and black skirts ruched up past her knees, the wild-haired rescuer pushed a pair of brass goggles up onto her mop of red locks and squinted. “Well, this is a fine mess,” she said.

See also

• ruck (“to crease”)
• rutch (“to slide”)

Central Franconian

Alternative forms

• reeche, rouche (northern Moselle Franconian)
• rieche (southern Moselle Franconian)

Etymology

From Middle High German r?chen, from Old High German *r?hhan, northern variant of riohhan.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??ux?/

Verb

ruche (third-person singular present rüch, past tense roch, past participle jeroche)

1. (Ripuarian, transitive or intransitive) to smell

French

Etymology

From Middle French rusche, from Medieval Latin rusca (“bark”), from Gaulish *rusk?, from Proto-Celtic *r?skos (“bark”).

Compare Breton rusk, Irish rúsc, Welsh rhisgl and Catalan rusc.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?y?/

Noun

ruche f (plural ruches)

1. hive, beehive
2. (textiles, fashion) ruffle; flounce; ruche

Derived terms

• rucher
• rucheur

Descendants

• ? English: ruche
• ? German: Rüsche
• ? Italian: ruche

Further reading

• ruche on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr
• “ruche” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from French ruche, from Middle French rusche, from Medieval Latin rusca (“bark”), from Gaulish *rusk?, from Proto-Celtic *r?skos (“bark”).

Compare Breton rusk, Irish rúsc, Welsh rhisgl and Catalan rusc.

Noun

ruche f (invariable)

1. ruche

Norman

Etymology

From Middle French rusche, from Medieval Latin rusca (“bark”), from Gaulish *rusk?, from Proto-Celtic *r?sklos (“bark”). Compare Breton rusk, Irish rúsc, Welsh rhisgl and Catalan rusc.

Noun

ruche f (plural ruches)

1. (Jersey) frill

English

Alternative forms

• nouch, ouch, owch

Etymology

From Middle English ouche, from nouche, which in phrases like a nouche was re-analyzed as an ouche. From Anglo-Norman nusche and Old French nusche (with metanalysis), from a Germanic source; compare German Nusche, Proto-Germanic *hnuts.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /a?t?/

Noun

ouche (plural ouches)

1. (poetic) A brooch or clasp for fastening a piece of clothing together, especially when valuable or set with jewels.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book XX:

     and the horse [was] trapped in the same wyse, down to the helys, wyth many owchys, i-sette with stonys and perelys in golde, to the numbir of a thousande.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.ii:

     a Persian mitre on her hed / She wore, with crownes and owches garnished [...].

   • With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with the names of the children of Israel: thou shalt make them to be set in ouches of gold.

   • 1896, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Story of Ung’, Seven Seas:

     There would be no pelts of the reindeer, flung down at thy cave for a gift, / Nor dole of the oily timber that strands with the Baltic drift; / No store of well-drilled needles, nor ouches of amber pale; / No new-cut tongues of the bison, nor meat of the stranded whale.