Word.ws English Dictionary

in a rut

in a rut prepositional phrase: to be stuck in a boring or monotonous routine or habit.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) To be stuck in a boring or monotonous routine or habit.
    • If you feel your life's in a rut / Just come on out tonight, and we'll pull you up / Ain't no use in dragging your feet / 'Cause something's in the air that just can't be beat1981, Quincy Jones, “Razzamatazz”, in The Dude
  2. (colloquial, idiomatic) To be overly fixated on one activity, job, or method.

Questions about in a rut

What does in a rut mean?
In a rut means to be stuck in a boring or monotonous routine or habit.
What part of speech is in a rut?
In a rut is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in a rut in the dictionary

  1. in a pinch
  2. in a puff of smoke
  3. in a real state
  4. in a right state
  5. in a row
  6. in a rut
  7. in a sea-way
  8. in a sense
  9. in a similar vein
  10. in a snap
  11. in a spin

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in a rut (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “in a rut.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/in_a_rut. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.