rusty
/ˈɹʌsti/
rusty adjective: marked or corroded by rust.
Adjective (1)
rusty (comparative rustier, superlative rustiest)
- Marked or corroded by rust.
- The overall mood of this volume is one of melancholy and loss, weary resignation to one's lot—trudging round and round on the rusty hamster wheel of life.2002 June 28, Michiko Kakutani, “Books of the Times”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 07 Dec 2019, retrieved 23 Sep 2008
- Of the rust color, reddish or reddish-brown.
- 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;1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XIV
- 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.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter I (Anarchy)...
- Lacking recent experience, out of practice, especially with respect to a skill or activity.
- 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.2010 December 29, Sam Sheringham, “Liverpool 0-1 Wolverhampton”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2011
- Of clothing, especially dark clothing: worn, shabby.
- He wore a black jacket, rusty and amorphous.1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson
- The clerk stared at him and the rusty black bonnet a moment, and then laughed.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC
- Affected with the fungal plant disease called rust.
Noun
rusty (uncountable)
Adjective (2)
rusty (comparative more rusty, superlative most rusty)
- Discolored and rancid; reasty.
- rusty bacon
- Cantankerous
- But they paraded the street, and watched the yard till dusk, when its proprietor ran rusty and turned them out.1864, Charles Reade, Very Hard Cash
Proper noun capitalized: Rusty
Rusty
- A male given name.
rusty meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada
rusty in Tamil
- துரு
rusty in Urdu
- rusty
- زنگ آلود zaṅg ālūd
rusty in Malayalam
- rust-covered, rusted, corroded
- തുരുമ്പിച്ച, തുരുമ്പുപിടിച്ച, തുരുമ്പുകൊണ്ടു മൂടിയ, ദ്രവിച്ച, തുരുമ്പു കേറിയ, രാസപ്രവർത്തനത്താൽ ദ്രവിച്ച
- auburn, reddish-brown, chestnut
- തുരുമ്പിന്റെ നിറമായ, തുരുമ്പുചുവപ്പു വർണ്ണമായ, കപിശ, ചെമപ്പുകലർന്ന തവിട്ടുനിറമുള്ള, ചെമ്പുനിറമുള്ള, ചെമ്പൻ
- out of practice, below par, unpractised
- പരിശീലിനമില്ലായ്മകൊണ്ടു ക്ഷമത കുറഞ്ഞ, അഭ്യാസമില്ലാത്ത, അഭ്യാസം ചെയ്യാത്ത, തഴക്കമില്ലാത്ത, പ്രയോഗിച്ചുശീലമില്ലാത്ത, വളരെക്കാലമായി പ്രയോഗിക്കാത്ത
rusty in Kannada
- ತುಕ್ಕು ಹಿಡಿದ, ಕಿಲುಬುಗಟ್ಟಿದ, ಬೂಷ್ಟು ಹಿಡಿದ, ಮಷ್ಟು ಹಿಡಿದ, ಮಸುಕಾದ, ಅಲಕ್ಷ್ಯದಿಂದ ಶಿಥಿಲವಾದ
More languagesFewer languages
- rusty in Gujarati
- કાટવાળું
- rusty in Nepali
- रस्टी
- rusty in Arabic
- صَدِئ ṣadiʔ
- rusty in Thai
- เป็นสนิม bpen-sà-nǐm
- rusty in Vietnamese
- rỉ
Examples of rusty in a sentence
- The stupid rusty wire cut my thumb when I grabbed it.
- I was rusty, but after a few months, I got back into practice.
- After years of neglect, the rusty old bridge could give way at any time.
Synonyms of rusty
Forms of rusty
| comparative | rustier |
|---|---|
| superlative | rustiest |
| comparative | more rusty |
| superlative | most rusty |
Origin of rusty
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”).
Ellipsis of rusty one more often used for this, or from the general epithet rusty given to various particular firearm names—earlier both were 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.
Variant form of resty; compare also reasty.
Words formed from rusty
- better than a poke in the eye with a rusty nail
- nonrusty
- ride rusty
- rustily
- rustiness
- rustyback
- rusty blackbird
- rusty dusty
- rusty guts
- rustyhood
- rustyish
- rusty-margined guan
- rusty nail
- rusty pitohui
- rusty plum aphid
- rusty sheriff's badge
- rusty-spotted cat
- rusty thicketbird
- rusty tinamou
- rusty trombone
- turn rusty
- unrusty
Phrases with rusty
- rode rusty
- rides rusty
- rusty nails
- turns rusty
- ridden rusty
- riding rusty
- turned rusty
- rusty dusties
- turning rusty
- rusty pitohuis
- rusty tinamous
- rusty trombones
1 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with rusty
Questions about rusty
- What does rusty mean?
- Rusty means marked or corroded by rust.
- What is rusty in Tamil?
- Rusty in Tamil is துரு. See Rusty meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is rusty?
- Rusty can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce rusty?
- Rusty is pronounced /ˈɹʌsti/.
Words near rusty in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rusty (page history and authors); Rusty (page history and authors); rusty (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); زنگ آلود (Urdu) (page history and authors); rusty (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); rusty (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rusty (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); rusty (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rusty.wav.
Cite this entry: “rusty.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rusty. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.