Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A sunken track or groove made by the passage of vehicles.
  • noun An uninspired routine or pattern of behavior that one continues unthinkingly or because change is difficult.
  • transitive verb To make ruts in (a path, for example).
  • noun A regularly recurring condition of fertility during which breeding occurs in certain mammals, especially deer and various other ungulates.
  • noun The period during which this condition occurs.
  • intransitive verb To be in rut.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A narrow track worn or cut in the ground; especially, the hollow track made by a wheel in passing over the ground.
  • noun A wrinkle.
  • noun Any beaten path or mode of procedure; an established habit or course.
  • To mark with or as with ruts; trace furrows in; also, to wrinkle: as, to rut the earth with a spade, or with cart-wheels.
  • noun A roaring noise; uproar.
  • noun The noise made by deer at the time of sexual excitement; hence, the periodical sexual excitement or heat of animals; the period of heat.
  • An obsolete or dialectal form of rout.
  • To be in heat; desire copulation.
  • To copulate with.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physiol.) Sexual desire or œstrus of deer, cattle, and various other mammals; heat; also, the period during which the œstrus exists.
  • noun Roaring, as of waves breaking upon the shore; rote. See Rote.
  • transitive verb To cover in copulation.
  • noun A track worn by a wheel or by habitual passage of anything; a groove in which anything runs. Also used figuratively.
  • transitive verb To make a rut or ruts in; -- chiefly used as a past participle or a participial adj..
  • intransitive verb To have a strong sexual impulse at the reproductive period; -- said of deer, cattle, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A furrow, groove, or track worn in the ground, as from the passage of many wheels along a road
  • noun A fixed routine, procedure, line of conduct, thought or feeling (See also rutter)
  • noun A dull routine
  • verb transitive To make a furrow
  • noun zoology Sexual desire or oestrus of cattle, and various other mammals
  • verb intransitive to be in the annual rut
  • verb intransitive to have sexual intercourse

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun applies to nonhuman mammals: a state or period of heightened sexual arousal and activity
  • noun a groove or furrow (especially one in soft earth caused by wheels)
  • noun a settled and monotonous routine that is hard to escape
  • verb be in a state of sexual excitement; of male mammals
  • verb hollow out in the form of a furrow or groove

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly alteration of route.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English rutte, from Old French rut, from Vulgar Latin *rūgitus, from *rūgere, to roar, from Latin rūgīre, to roar.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French ‘noise, roar, bellowing’, from Latin rugitus, from rugire ‘to roar’

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

16th century. Probably from French route ‘road’

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word rut.

Examples

  • It almost seems like the rut is affecting me more then the bucks.

    Buck Fever in the Classroom 2009

  • It almost seems like the rut is affecting me more then the bucks.

    Buck Fever in the Classroom 2009

  • It's only 70 miles from Bankhead where the rut is almost dead but its just now starting to heat up in Marion county.

    Bestul: Winding Down the Rut 2009

  • Across much of whitetail range, the rut is a scant few weeks away.

    Uncategorized Blog Posts 2009

  • It's only 70 miles from Bankhead where the rut is almost dead but its just now starting to heat up in Marion county.

    Bestul: Winding Down the Rut 2009

  • As I noted last week, the rut is a fading flower across much of whitetail range, and recent severe winter weather will put food at the top of the whitetail list of basic needs now.

    Uncategorized Blog Posts 2009

  • Across much of whitetail range, the rut is a scant few weeks away.

    It's Beginng to Look Like Rub Season 2009

  • Here in west central indiana the deer arnt very active yet and there arnt many corn fields that have been picked yet but its gettn cooler and the rut is about a week off so im huntin feild edges the deer gotta leave the corn sometime there aint no ponds or cricks in the feilds to drink from

    It's Beginng to Look Like Rub Season 2009

  • Here in west central indiana the deer arnt very active yet and there arnt many corn fields that have been picked yet but its gettn cooler and the rut is about a week off so im huntin feild edges the deer gotta leave the corn sometime there aint no ponds or cricks in the feilds to drink from

    It's Beginng to Look Like Rub Season 2009

  • As I noted last week, the rut is a fading flower across much of whitetail range, and recent severe winter weather will put food at the top of the whitetail list of basic needs now.

    Bestul: Winding Down the Rut 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.