Word.ws English Dictionary

rut

/ɹʌt/ [ɹʌʔ]

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northern England/ɹʊt/

rut noun: sexual desire in any of many mammals, often specific to mating season; the state or season in which this is experienced.

rut: sexual desire in any of many mammals, often specific to mating season; the state or season in which...
Image: Burda, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

rut (countable and uncountable, plural ruts)

  1. Sexual desire in any of many mammals, often specific to mating season; the state or season in which this is experienced.
    Synonyms:
    heat
  2. The noise made by deer during sexual excitement.
    • Near-synonyms: grunt, roar
    Synonyms:
    grunt, roar
  3. Roaring, as of waves breaking upon the shore; rote.
  4. (slang) In omegaverse fiction, the intense biological urge of an alpha to mate, typically triggered by proximity to an omega in heat.
    • Proximity to an omega in heat can sometimes cause alphas go into rut, an aggressive need for sexual intercourse usually triggered by the scent of an omega in heat.2017, Marianne Gunderson, "What is an omega?: Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction", thesis submitted to the University of Oslo, page 36
    • All the characters in this story pressure Dean to help Castiel through his rut, and clearly consider Dean’s resistance to be immature and an overreaction.2019, Tessa Barone, "Just Go Find Yourself a Nice Alpha: Gender and Consent in Supernatural Fandom's Alpha/Beta/Omega Universe", thesis submitted to Oregon State University, page 34

Verb (1)

rut (third-person singular simple present ruts, present participle rutting, simple past and past participle rutted)

  1. (intransitive) To be in the annual rut or mating season.
    Synonyms:
    blissom, brim, bull, oestruate
  2. (intransitive) To have sexual intercourse.
    • “Well, Mayella was raisin‘ this holy racket so I dropped m’load and run as fast as I could but I run into th’ fence, but when I got distangled I run up to th‘ window and I seen—” Mr. Ewell’s face grew scarlet. He stood up and pointed his finger at Tom Robinson. “—I seen that black nigger yonder...1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC
  3. (rare, transitive) To have sexual intercourse with.
    • “Alfred,” Ragnar continued scathingly. “All he cares about is rutting girls, which is good![…]”2004, Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom
    • VVhat Piety forbids the luſty Ram / Or more ſalacious Goat, to rut their Dam?1700, [John] Dryden, “Cinyras and Myrrha, out of the Tenth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 175
  4. (intransitive, slang) To rub the genitals against something for physical stimulation.
    • Near-synonym: hump
    • We have just rescued a dog from a shelter; she has a great personality, except the one problem with her is that she ocassionally^([sic]) likes to "rut" against my husband's leg or arm !1999 May 22, Joanna Woodcock, “Female dog desire ?”, in alt.animals.dog (Usenet)
    Synonyms:
    hump

Noun (2)

rut (plural ruts)

  1. A furrow, groove, or track worn in the ground, as from the passage of many wheels along a road.
    Synonyms:
    groove, furrow
  2. (figuratively) A fixed routine, procedure, line of conduct, thought or feeling.
    Synonyms:
    routine
  3. (figuratively) A dull routine.
    • Dull job, no interests, no dates. He's really in a rut.
    • Some people might say my life is in a rut / I'm quite happy with what I got1980, Paul Weller, “Going Underground”, in Setting Sons, performed by The Jam

Verb (2)

rut (third-person singular simple present ruts, present participle rutting, simple past and past participle rutted)

  1. (transitive) To make a furrow.

rut meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

rut in Tamil

மான்

rut in Bengali

বাঁধানো পথ, একঘেয়ে জীবনধারা

rut in Malayalam

groove, furrow, trough
പാത്തി, ചാല്, ഉഴവുചാല്, വണ്ടിച്ചക്രച്ചാല്, കുഴി, കിടങ്ങ്
boring routine, humdrum existence, groove
വിരസജീവിതം, വിരസമായ ദിനചര്യ, ഒരേ മട്ടിലുള്ള പ്രവൃത്തി, ഏകതാനത, വെെചിത്ര്യമില്ലാത്ത ജീവിതരീതി, പതിവുശീലം

rut in Kannada

ಗಾಲಿಯ ಹಳ್ಳ, ತುಳಿದ ದಾರಿ, ಹಳೆಯ ಬಗೆ, ಸೊಕ್ಕು
More languagesFewer languages
rut in Tagalog
lubyak, bal-ak
rut in Persian
رد rad
Sindhi
وَڙْجَڻُ vaṛjaṇu

Examples of rut in a sentence

  • Early in Wicked Game, Steve goes into his first-ever rut.2019, Chris van der Vegt, "The Second Genders: Utopia and Dystopia in Stranger Things Omegaverse Fanfiction", thesis submitted to Utrecht...
  • “—I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!”1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:
  • I'd bend over and wait...and wait...and wait... finally turning around to see him rutting against a table leg.2001 September 8, Looney, “On a sidenote”, in alt.underground (Usenet):

All 26 example sentences with rut

Synonyms of rut

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of rut

Forms of rut

Noun
pluralruts
Verb
third-person singular presentruts
present participlerutting
past participlerutted
pastrutted

Plural of rut: ruts

Origin of rut

From Middle English rutte (noun) and rutten (verb), from Old French rut (“noise, roar, bellowing”), from Latin rugītus, from rugīre (“to roar”).

Probably from Middle English route, from Middle French route (“road”), from Old French route. See also rutter.

Words formed from rut

Words that rhyme with rut

26 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about rut

What does rut mean?
Rut means sexual desire in any of many mammals, often specific to mating season; the state or season in which this is experienced.
What is rut in Tamil?
Rut in Tamil is மான். See Rut meaning in Tamil.
How do you use rut in a sentence?
Early in Wicked Game, Steve goes into his first-ever rut.
What part of speech is rut?
Rut can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce rut?
Rut is pronounced /ɹʌt/ [ɹʌʔ].
What is the plural of rut?
The plural of rut is ruts.

Words near rut in the dictionary

  1. Rusyn
  2. Rusynness
  3. Rusyns
  4. Ruszkowski
  5. Ruszkowskis
  6. rut
  7. rut roh
  8. rut-roh
  9. Ruta
  10. ruta-baga
  11. ruta-bagas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rut (page history and authors); rut (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rut (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rut (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); rut (Kannada 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:

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

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