rutch
/ɹʊt͡ʃ/
rutch verb: to slide; to scooch; to shuffle.
Verb
rutch (third-person singular simple present rutches, present participle rutching, simple past and past participle rutched)
- To slide; to scooch; to shuffle.
- Then Ismail set the pace yet faster, and they became the last two of a procession of turbaned men who tramped along a winding tunnel into a great mountain's womb. The sound of slippers clicking and rutching on the rock floor swelled and died and swelled again ...1916, Talbot Mundy, King-of the Khyber rifles: a romance of adventure, page 201
- Then, having salaamed the diwan obsequiously, he walked to the nearest gate with the heels of his loose sandals rutching on the gravel and dislike of exercise written all over him as if he were a Hindu merchant to the manner born.1923, Adventure, page 44
- To squirm; to move around frequently.
- Sitting on hard wooden chairs in school didn't help one bit, and I had an especially difficult time sitting still in class. One of my teachers was quite versed in Pennsylvania Dutch, and kept saying, “Quit your rutching!"2010, Robert Struesel, He Said I Could: Extraordinary from the Ordinary, iUniverse, →ISBN
Examples of rutch in a sentence
- The twelfth had his chair half turned and was playing across a far corner of the table the board-game that made the occasional tiny rutching noises.1964 January, Fritz Leiber, Harry [Otto] Fischer, “The Lords of Quarmall”, in Cele Goldsmith, editor, Fantastic: Stories of Imagination...
- "Ponsonby, my boy." The man in drab silk slipped into a chair next to Kirby's as a wolf slips into his lair, very circumspectly, and without noise; then he rutched the chair sidewise toward Kirby […]2018, Talbot Mundy, Thirteen Books, B&R Samizdat Express, →ISBN:
Forms of rutch
| third-person singular present | rutches |
|---|---|
| present participle | rutching |
| past participle | rutched |
| past | rutched |
| alternative form | rootch |
| alternative form | rutsch |
Origin of rutch
Partly from German rutschen (“slide”), partly (especially in Pennsylvania Dutch English) from Pennsylvania German rutsche (“slide; move around frequently”), and partly (especially in Amish use) from Plautdietsch rutschen (“slide”). Compare also West Country English ruge (“slippery”).
Words that rhyme with rutch
Questions about rutch
- What does rutch mean?
- Rutch means to slide; to scooch; to shuffle.
- How do you use rutch in a sentence?
- The twelfth had his chair half turned and was playing across a far corner of the table the board-game that made the occasional tiny rutching noises.
- What part of speech is rutch?
- Rutch is a verb.
- How do you pronounce rutch?
- Rutch is pronounced /ɹʊt͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of rutch?
- The past tense of rutch is rutched.
Words near rutch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rutch (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:
Cite this entry: “rutch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rutch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.