rug

rug

1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Roviana.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Roviana terms

Uncertain; probably of North Germanic origin; perhaps inherited via Middle English *rugge (suggested by Middle English ruggy (“hairy, shaggy, bristly”) and rugged (“hairy, shaggy, rugged”)), from Old Norse rǫgg (“shagginess, tuft”), from Proto-Germanic *rawwō (“long wool”), probably related to *rūhaz (“rough”), related to English rag and rough.

Cognate with dialectal Norwegian rugga (“coarse coverlet”), Swedish rugg (“rough entangled hair”), related to English rag and rough. Compare also Old English rȳhe (“rug, rough covering, blanket”).

• enPR: rŭg, IPA^(key): /ɹʌɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

rug (plural rugs)

1. A partial covering for a floor. [1624]
2. (UK, Australia) A (usually thick) piece of fabric used for warmth (especially on a bed); a blanket. [1591]
   • 1855, William Howitt, A Boy′s Adventures in the Wilds of Australia: or, Herbert′s Note-Book, page 254:

     They then cut down a quantity of gum-tree leaves for a bed, and threw their rugs upon them ready for bed-time.

   • 1906 July 27, Government Gazette of Western Australia, page 2297:

     Furnish every sleeping apartment with a sufficient number of toilet utensils and bedsteads, and sufficient bedding so that each bed shall be provided with a mattress, two sheets, a rug, and, in winter time, not less than one additional rug.

   • 1950 April, Dental Journal of Australia, Volume 22, page 181,

     My own son had a bunny rug of which he was very fond and on being put to bed he would always demand his “bunny rug to suck his finger with.″

   • 1958, Arthur Hailey, John Castle. Runway Zero-Eight. Bantham Books

     She tucked in a rug round the woman. “How’s that?” The woman nodded gratefully.

   • 1997, Alan Sharpe, Vivien Encel, Murder!: 25 True Australian Crimes, page 22:

     He brought with him a rug and a sheet, and lay down by the fire.

3. (historical, now rare) A kind of coarse, heavy frieze, formerly used for clothing. [1547]
   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, “The Historie of Irelande […]”, in The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Hunne, →OCLC:

     They spin the choicest rug in Ireland. A friend of mine […] repaired to Paris Garden clad in one of these Waterford rugs.

4. (historical, now rare) A cloak or mantle made of such a frieze. [1577]
5. (obsolete, rare) A person wearing a rug. [1627]
6. A cloth covering for a horse. [1790]
7. (obsolete, rare) A dense layer of natural vegetation that precludes the growth of crops. [1792]
8. (slang) The female pubic hair. [1893]
9. A rough, woolly, or shaggy dog.
10. (slang) A wig; a hairpiece. [1940]
    • 1985 July 12, Martin Cropper, “Theatre: The Philanthropist”, in The Times, number 62,188, London, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 15, column 7:

      The intervening years have been kind to Edward Fox and John Wells, who now assume the principal roles, in allowing them to keep their full complement of hair. Mr Fox shows his gratitude by using his rug as a prop, flopping it forward, Welsh-combing it back, letting it stand up on end as if from shock, while Mr Wells is content mostly to let his limply swathe his forehead.

11. (colloquial) A dense growth of chest hair. [1954]
12. (US, slang, ethnic slur) Ellipsis of rughead.
    • 1980, John Irwin, Prisons in Turmoil, page 212:

      We're the motherfuckers be fightin' when the rugs [black prisoners] start wasting people around here.

• (partial floor covering): The terms rug and carpet are not precise synonyms: a rug covers part of the floor; a carpet covers most or a large area of the floor; a fitted carpet runs wall-to-wall.

• (small carpet): carpet, mat
• (wig): toupee, wig

rug (third-person singular simple present rugs, present participle rugging, simple past and past participle rugged)

1. (transitive) To cover with a rug.
   • 1966, Margaret I. Clarke, Care of the Horse and Pony, page 45:

     It stands to reason that because of the difference in climate the necessity for rugging a horse in Australia would vary considerably from that in cold countries like England […]

2. (Scotland, archaic) To pull roughly or hastily; to plunder; to spoil; to tear.
   • 1816, [Walter Scott], The Antiquary. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:

     “this was a job in the auld times o'rugging and riving through the hale country […] ”

3. Clipping of rug pull

• rug up

• “rug”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “rug”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “rug”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• GRU, GUR

From Dutch rug.

• IPA^(key): /rœχ/

• Audio:

  (file)

rug (plural rûe or rûens, diminutive ruggie)

1. (plural chiefly rûe) back (rear of the body)
2. (plural chiefly rûens) hill; ridge

From Latin rubus. Compare Romanian rug.

• rugu, arug, arugu

rug m (plural rudz)

1. wild rose, raspberry bush, bramble bush

• pilivuri, zigrã, mãcesh, bubzel

Probably a semi-learned term or borrowing from Latin rogus, as with its Romanian cognate rug (or modeled after it). Less likely inherited.

rug m (plural rudz)

1. funeral pyre

From Old Danish rugh, from Old Norse rugr, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wrugʰyo-. Compare Norwegian Bokmål rug, Swedish råg, Icelandic rúgur, Dutch rogge, Low German Rogg, German Roggen, English rye.

rug c (singular definite rugen, not used in plural form)

1. rye (Secale cereale)

rug

1. imperative of ruge

From Middle Dutch rugge, from Old Dutch ruggi, from Proto-West Germanic *hrugi, from Proto-Germanic *hrugjaz.

• IPA^(key): /rʏx/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: rug
• Rhymes: -ʏx

rug m (plural ruggen, diminutive ruggetje n or rugje n)

1. back, backside
2. (geology) ridge
3. (Netherlands, historical) ellipsis of rooie rug (“thousand-guilders banknote”)

• Afrikaans: rug
• Jersey Dutch: rœx
• Negerhollands: rugge, rigi, rege

rug m

1. rye (Secale cereale)

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

rug

1. accusative singular indefinite of rugur

From Old Irish ·ruc, prototonic form of ro·ucc, perfect tense of beirid.

• (Munster) IPA^(key): /ɾˠuɡ/^[1], /ɾʲuɡ/^[2]
• (Connacht) IPA^(key): /ɾˠuɡ/^[3][4]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /ɾˠɞɡ/^[5]

rug

1. analytic past indicative of beir

From ro·uccai, suppletive augmented form of beirid. Compare Irish and Scottish Gaelic rugadh.

rug (verbal noun ruggal, past participle ruggit)

1. to bear (give birth to)

• behr
• ymmyrk

From Old Norse rugr, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wrugʰyo-. Compare Danish rug, Swedish råg, Icelandic rúgur, Dutch rogge, German Roggen, English rye.

rug m (definite singular rugen)

1. rye (the grass Secale cereale or its grains as food)

• rugbrød

• “rug” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Old Norse rugr, from Proto-Germanic *rugiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wrugʰyo-. Cognate with Faroese rugur, Icelandic rúgur, Swedish råg, Danish rug, Dutch rogge, German Roggen, and English rye.

• IPA^(key): /rʊː(ɡ)/, /rʉː(ɡ)/
• (Nord-Gudbrandsdalen) IPA^(key): [ruɡ]
• Hyphenation: rùg

rug m (definite singular rugen)

1. rye (the grass Secale cereale or its grains as food)

• rugbrød

• “rug” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

rūg

1. alternative form of rūh

• IPA^(key): /ˈruk/
• Rhymes: -uk
• Syllabification: rug
• Homophones: róg, Róg, Rug

Learned borrowing from Latin rūga.

rug m inan

1. (obsolete) crease, notch, wrinkle

   Synonyms: bruzda, fałda, karb, zmarszczka

Inherited from Old Polish rug.

rug m inan (related adjective rugowy)

1. (in the plural, historical) mass expulsions of foreign subjects

   Synonyms: ekspulsja, wydalanie

2. (in the plural, historical) verifying the validity of parliamentary elections

   Hypernym: sprawdzanie

3. (chiefly in the plural, historical) judicial inquiry, investigation

   Synonyms: dochodzenie, śledztwo

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

rug f

1. genitive plural of ruga

• rug in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• rug in PWN's encyclopedia
• Brückner, Aleksander (1927) “rug”, in Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego [Etymological Dictionary of the Polish Language] (in Polish), Warsaw: Wiedza Powszechna

• (Central Romagnol): IPA^(key): [ˈɾuːɡ]

rug m pl

1. plural of rôg

Masotti, Adelmo (1996) Vocabolario Romagnolo Italiano [Romagnol-Italian dictionary] (in Italian), Bologna: Zanichelli, page 514

From Latin rogus, probably borrowed in the 19th century or semi-learned. The linguists Candrea and Tiktin believed it to be inherited.

rug n (plural ruguri)

1. pyre

Inherited from Latin rubus (“bramble, briar”), from Proto-Italic *wruðos, from Proto-Indo-European *wr̥dʰo- (“sweetbriar”). Compare Italian rovo, dialectal rogo. For the sound shift of Latin -b- to -g- in Romanian, compare neg, negură.

rug m (plural rugi)

1. bramble
2. dog rose
3. blackberry

• măceș

• ruget

• “rug”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025

• IPA^(key): /rˠuk/

rug

1. past of beir