different between rugged vs endurable

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English rugged, roggyd, ruggyd, derived from Old Norse r?gg (“tuft, shagginess”), equivalent to rug (“rough, woollen material”) +? -ed. Compare Old Swedish ruggoter (“wrinkled”), Swedish rugga (“to roughen”), Swedish ruggig (“shaggy”), Icelandic rögg (“shagginess”), Old Norse raggaðr (“tufted”), dialectal Danish raggad (“shaggy”).

Pronunciation

• r?-g?d, IPA^(key): /?????d/

Adjective

rugged (comparative ruggeder, superlative ruggedest)

1. Broken into sharp or irregular points; uneven; not smooth; rough.
   • 1870, Mark Twain, Roughing It, Chapter LXV

     By and by, after a rugged climb, we halted on the summit of a hill which commanded a far-reaching view.

2. Not neat or regular; irregular, uneven.
   • 2011, Ronke Luke-Boone, African Fabrics: Sewing Contemporary Fashion with Ethic Flair

     Commercially produced yarn, such as rayon, produces a cloth with a smoother, shinier look than hand-spun cotton, but the uneven, rugged look of hand-spun cotton can be quite appealing.

3. Rough with bristles or hair; shaggy.
4. (of a person) Strong, sturdy, well-built.
   • 2010, Arthur Queen Jr., Young Man: Ageless Fatherly Wisdom to Hold

     Many women and men delude themselves into thinking that only the hardest and most rugged man is attractive and to many it may be the case.

5. (of land) Rocky and bare of plantlife.
   • 2013, Vicky Baker in The Guardian, Riding with the cowboys on a Mexico ranch

     Hidden within 30,000 acres of rugged private land, the ranch is cocooned by peaks and canyons in all directions.
6. (of temper, character, or people) Harsh; austere; hard; crabbed
7. Stormy; turbulent; tempestuous; rude.
8. (of sound, style etc.) Harsh; grating; rough to the ear
9. (of looks, appearance etc.) Sour; surly; frowning; wrinkled
10. (of behaviour) Violent; rude; boisterous
11. (of health, physique etc.) Vigorous; robust; hardy
    • 1909, Jack London, Martin Eden

      "Her gaze rested for a moment on the muscular neck, heavy corded, almost bull-like, bronzed by the sun, spilling over with rugged health and strength..."

12. (computing, of a computer) Designed to reliably operate in harsh usage environments and conditions.
    • 2011, Nick Fletcher, Psion drops 2% after supply chain issues push it into loss

      Psion, which supplies a range of rugged hand held computers, has lost nearly 2% after announcing a plunge into the red.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• rugged in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• rugged at OneLook Dictionary Search

Etymology 2

rug +? -ed

Pronunciation

• r?gd, IPA^(key): /???d/

Adjective

rugged (not comparable)

1. Having a rug or rugs.
2. Covered with a rug.

Verb

rugged

1. simple past tense and past participle of rug

Anagrams

• Dugger, Gudger, grudge, gurged

English

Alternative forms

• indurable (archaic)

Etymology

endure +? -able

Adjective

endurable (comparative more endurable, superlative most endurable)

1. Able to be endured; tolerable; bearable.
   • 1842, Charles Dickens, American Notes, Chapter II, [1]

     A sharp keen wind blew dead against us; a hard frost prevailed on shore; and the cold was most severe. Yet the air was so intensely clear, and dry, and bright, that the temperature was not only endurable, but delicious.

   • 1871, George Macdonald, "The Broken Swords" in The Cruel Painter and Other Stories, London: Strahan & Co., p. 191, [2]

     As his bodily strength increased, and his health, considerably impaired by inward suffering, improved, the trouble of his soul became more endurable—and in some measure to endure is to conquer and destroy.

   • 1919, J. C. Squire, "Envoi" in Poems: First Series, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 115, [3]

     And when belief was dead and God a myth, / And the world seemed a wandering mote of evil, / Endurable only by its impermanence, / And all the planets perishable urns / Of perishable ashes, to you alone I clung / Amid the unspeakable loneliness of the universe.

   • 1933, Sinclair Lewis, "The Art of Dramatization" in The Man from Main Street: Selected Essays and Other Writings: 1904-1950, edited by Harry E. Maule and Melville H. Cane, New York: Pocket Books, 1963, p. 221,

     A novelist can run on and on (and, alas, does!). He can perversely take twenty words to describe the Apocalypse and fifty pages to chronicle the hero's shaving, and still be endurable, because the reader can always slap the book shut and continue it only when he is in the mood.

   • 1970, Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, New York: Vintage, 2007, p. 26,

     Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.

2. Capable of enduring; likely to endure; durable.
   • 1834, John Tyrell, Hansard, 21 March, 1834, [4]

     […] the agriculturist would outlive the struggle, and his property be as fixed and endurable as the oaks which were planted by his ancestors.

   • 2012, Sean Chase, "Surviving Devil's Brigade member to receive Congressional Gold Medal," The Toronto Sun, 29 September, 2012, [5]

     Albert E. Brum was born into one of Petawawa’s founding families who eventually established one of the area’s most endurable businesses.

Derived terms

• endurability
• endurableness
• endurably

Translations

French

Etymology

endurer (“to endure”) +? -able

Adjective

endurable (plural endurables)

1. endurable, which can be endured

Further reading

• “endurable” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).