ruche

/ɹuːʃ/

ruche noun: a strip of fabric which has been fluted or pleated.

Image: http://collections.lacma.org/sites/default/files/remote_imag, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

ruche (plural ruches)

A strip of fabric which has been fluted or pleated.
A small ruff of fluted or pleated fabric worn at neck or wrist.
- Mrs. Newsome wore at operatic hours a black silk dress—very handsome, he knew it was "handsome"—and an ornament that his memory was able further to identify as a ruche.1903 September 28, Henry James, The Ambassadors, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC
A pile of arched tiles, used to catch and retain oyster spawn.

Verb

ruche (third-person singular simple present ruches, present participle ruching, simple past and past participle ruched)

To flute or pleat (fabric).
- ruched curtains
- At each seam the dress opens to a-point over a silk petticoat. The skirt is ruched around the bottom and the openings, between which are bows of ribbon and lace.1864, Frank Leslie's Lady's Magazine
To bunch up (fabric); to ruck up.
- Joe Baxter pulled the dress farther down, so it was ruched around my middle, the bottom half pulled up to my stomach.2014, Harriet Evans, Not Without You, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 47
- A woman with an agonized expression on her up-turned face sat with her knees apart while a man buried his head between her legs. Her dress was ruched around her waist, and her breasts were bared. Gilmore's scandalous, erotic art.2017, Laura Trentham, An Indecent Invitation: Spies and Lovers Book 1, Laura Huskins, →ISBN

ruche meaning in Tamil

ruche in Tamil

ஃரூ ச், தேன்கூடு, தேனடை

Examples of ruche in a sentence

She has had all of them made with low waists, ruffled or ruched around the corsage, ...1899, The Country Gentleman, page 337:
Clad in a leather bodice and black skirts ruched up past her knees, the wild-haired rescuer pushed a pair of brass goggles up onto her mop of red locks and squinted.2018, Raquel Byrnes, Tremblers, Pelican Ventures Book Group, →ISBN:

Forms of ruche

Noun
plural	ruches
Verb
third-person singular present	ruches
present participle	ruching
past participle	ruched
past	ruched

Origin of ruche

Borrowed from French ruche, from Middle French rusche, from Old French rusche, from Early Medieval Latin rusca (“bark”), borrowed from Gaulish rūsca, from Proto-Celtic *rūskos (“bark”), from *rukskos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃rewk- (“to dig up”), from *Hrew- (“to tear out, dig out”).

Words formed from ruche

ruching

Words that rhyme with ruche

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

tarboosh

Questions about ruche

What does ruche mean?: Ruche means a strip of fabric which has been fluted or pleated.
What is ruche in Tamil?: Ruche in Tamil is ஃரூ ச், தேன்கூடு, தேனடை. See Ruche meaning in Tamil.
How do you use ruche in a sentence?: She has had all of them made with low waists, ruffled or ruched around the corsage, ...
What part of speech is ruche?: Ruche can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce ruche?: Ruche is pronounced /ɹuːʃ/.
What is the plural of ruche?: The plural of ruche is ruches.

Words near ruche in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: ruche (page history and authors); ruche (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ruche.wav.

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