rusty
See also: Rusty
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɹʌsti/
Audio (RP) (file)
- Rhymes: -ʌsti
Etymology 1
From Middle English rusty, from Old English rūstiġ (“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)
- Marked or corroded by rust. [from 9th c.]
- 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;
- 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter I, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:
- 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.
- 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XIV:
- Lacking recent experience, out of practice, especially with respect to a skill or activity. [from 16th c.]
- 2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0-1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC:
- Before the match, Hodgson had expressed the hope that his players would be fresh rather than rusty after an 18-day break from league commitments because of two successive postponements.
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- (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 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, OCLC 305520:
- The clerk stared at him and the rusty black bonnet a moment, and then laughed.
- 1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson:
- Affected with the fungal plant disease called rust.
Derived terms
- rustily
- rustiness
- ride rusty
- rusty nail
- Rusty (nickname)
- turn rusty
Translations
affected by rust
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of the rust color, reddish or reddish-brown
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lacking recent experience, out of practice
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worn, shabby
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Etymology 2
Ellipsis of rusty one more often used for this, or from the general epithet rusty given to various particular firearm names—earlier both was applied in Cockney rhyming slang for other machines, including swords in their day, but the present coinage has not more than a loose connection to this and is from the preference for used or antique firearms due to their being easier or cheaper to obtain.
Noun
rusty (uncountable)
- (MLE, slang) A gun or in particular an old or worn one.
- 2014 August 25, Dimzy of 67 (lyrics and music), “Outside”, 1:29–1:35:
- My angles dusty, two black hands on the rusty
And I got uck from a peng ting, mad back but the chest busty
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Etymology 3
Variant form of resty; compare also reasty.
Adjective
rusty (comparative more rusty, superlative most rusty)
- Discolored and rancid; reasty. [from 16th c.]
- rusty bacon
Anagrams
- Tyrus, yurts
Middle English
Alternative forms
- rosty, rousty, rowsty, ruste, rusti, ruysty
- rustiȝ (early)
Etymology
From Old English rustiġ, rūstiġ; equivalent to rust + -y.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈrustiː/, /ˈruːstiː/
Adjective
rusty
- rusty, rusted
- degenerate, uncouth
- (rare) rust-coloured
- (rare) unpolished, jarring
Descendants
- English: rusty
- Scots: roosty, rousty
- Yola: roostha, roosta
References
- “rū̆stī, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.