different between rutty vs rusty

English

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, London: for the author, p. 14,^[2]

     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,^[3]

     […] 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,^[4]

     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,^[5]

     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,^[6]

     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,^[7]

     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, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, p. 45,^[8]

     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,^[9]

     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, London: William Ponsonby,^[10]

     […] 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,^[11]

     […] whistling reeds, that rutty Iordan laues,

     And with their verdure his white head embraues,

     To chide the windes,

Etymology 3

From Hindi [Term?], 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 1.5 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,^[12]

     […] 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,^[13]

     [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,^[14]

     […] 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 […]

References

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???sti/
• Rhymes: -?sti

Etymology 1

From Middle English rusty, from Old English r?sti? (“rusty”), from Proto-Germanic *rustagaz (“rusty”), equivalent to rust +? -y. Cognate with Saterland Frisian rusterch (“rusty”), West Frisian rustich, roastich (“rusty”), Dutch roestig (“rusty”), German Low German rusterig, rüsterig (“rusty”), German rostig (“rusty”), Swedish rostig (“rusty”).

Adjective

rusty (comparative rustier, superlative rustiest)

1. Marked or corroded by rust. [from 9th c.]
2. Of the rust color, reddish or reddish-brown. [from 14th c.]
   • 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XIV:

     Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, / With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, / And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;

   • Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

3. Lacking recent experience, out of practice, especially with respect to a skill or activity. [from 16th c.]
4. (now chiefly historical) Of clothing, especially dark clothing: worn, shabby. [from 17th c.]
   • 1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson:

     He wore a black jacket, rusty and amorphous.

   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows:

     The clerk stared at him and the rusty black bonnet a moment, and then laughed.

5. Affected with the fungal plant disease called rust.

Derived terms

• ride rusty
• rusty nail
• Rusty (nickname)
• turn rusty

Translations

Etymology 2

Variant form of resty; compare also reasty.

Adjective

rusty (comparative more rusty, superlative most rusty)

1. Discolored and rancid; reasty. [from 16th c.]

Anagrams

• Tyrus, yurts

Middle English

Alternative forms

• ruste, rousty, rosty, ruisty
• rusti?e (early)

Etymology

From Old English r?sti?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?rusti?/, /?ru?sti?/

Adjective

rusty

1. rusted

Descendants

• English: rusty
• Yola: roostha

References

• “r??st?, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.