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rub [rub 词源字典]: rub: [14] The antecedents of rub are unclear. It may have been borrowed from Low German rubben, but since it is not known where that came from, it does not get us much further. The derivative rubber [16] was originally used simply for ‘something for rubbing with’. But since the substance obtained from rubber trees was early on used for pencil erasers, it became known from the end of the 18th century as rubber (or in full India-rubber, from its place of origin). It is not clear whether rubber ‘set of games’ [16], which originated as a bowls term, is the same word.
=> rubber[rub etymology, rub origin, 英语词源]
rubble: rubble: [14] Old French robe (a relative of English rob) originally meant ‘loot, odds and ends stolen’ (its later sense ‘stolen clothes’ led on to English robe). From it was derived Anglo- Norman *robel ‘bits of broken stone’, which passed into English as rubble. The plural of *robel would have been *robeus, and this may have been the starting point for Anglo-Norman rubbous, which became English rubbish [14].
=> rob, rubbish
ruby: ruby: [14] Ruby goes back ultimately to Latin ruber ‘red’, a descendant of the same Indo- European base as produced English red. From it was derived the medieval Latin adjective rubīnus, which was used in the term lapis rubīnus ‘red stone’. In due course rubīnus itself came to be employed as a noun in this sense, and it passed into English via Old French rubi. Other English words from the same source include rubella [19], rubicund [16], rubidium [19], and rubric [14] (headings in ancient and medieval manuscripts were often written in red ink).
=> red, rubella, rubicund, rubric
rudder: rudder: [OE] Rudder comes from the same source as English row ‘use oars’ – prehistoric Germanic *rō- ‘steer’. Indeed it originally denoted an ‘oar used for steering’; the modern application to a fixed steering surface did not emerge until the 14th century. Its west Germanic ancestor *rōthra- also produced German ruder and Dutch roer.
=> row
ruddy: ruddy: see red
rude: rude: [14] Rude comes via Old French rude from Latin rudis ‘rough, raw’. This seems originally to have denoted ‘rough unpolished stone’ – it was related to Latin rūdus ‘broken stone’ – but its ultimate origins are unknown. From it were derived rudīmentum ‘beginning’ (etymologically ‘raw state’), which has given English rudiment [16], and ērudīre ‘take the roughness out of’, hence ‘polish, teach’, source of English erudite.
=> erudite, rot, rudiment
rue: rue: Rue ‘regret’ [OE] and rue the plant [14] are distinct words. The former goes back to a prehistoric Germanic source, of uncertain ultimate origins, which meant ‘distress’, and which also produced German reuen and Dutch rouwen. In the early Middle English period, when it still meant ‘cause to feel pity’ (a sense which has now died out), a noun ruth ‘pity’ was formed from it, which survives in ruthless [14]. And a cognate noun rue once existed too, meaning ‘sorrow, regret’, which also lives on only in the form of a derivative: rueful [13]. The plant-name rue comes via Old French rue and Latin rūta from Greek rhūté.
=> rueful, ruthless
rufous: rufous: see red
rug: rug: [16] The ancestry of rug is not altogether clear. It originally meant ‘rough woollen cloth’, which appears to link it with words such as Swedish rugg ‘ruffled hair’ and Old Norse rogg ‘tuft’ (source of English rag), so it could well be a Scandinavian borrowing. It was not used for a ‘mat’ until the early 19th century. The original notion of ‘roughness’ or ‘shagginess’ is better preserved in rugged [14], which presumably comes from a related source.
rugby: rugby: [19] Legend has it that the game of rugby football was born at Rugby School in Warwickshire in 1823 when, during an ordinary game of football, a boy called William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it. The use of the term rugby for the game is not recorded before 1864, and the public-school slang version rugger dates from the 1890s.
ruin: ruin: [14] If something is ruined, etymologically it has simply ‘fallen down’. The word’s ultimate ancestor is Latin ruere ‘fall, crumble’ (source also of English congruent). From it was derived the noun ruīna ‘fall’, which passed into English via Old French ruine.
=> congruent
rule: rule: [13] Rule is one of a largish family of English words that go back ultimately to Latin rēgula ‘straight stick, ruler, rule, pattern’ (whose close relatives rēx ‘king’ and regere ‘rule’ have also contributed royally to English vocabulary in the form of rector, regent, regiment, royal, etc). Derivatives have produced regular and regulate, while rēgula itself has given rail ‘bar’ and, via Vulgar Latin *regula and Old French reule, rule.
=> rail, raj, rector, regal, regent, regular, regulate, royal
rummage: rummage: [16] Rummage is etymologically ‘roomage’. It originally denoted the ‘stowage of cargo in a ship’s hold’. It came from Anglo- Norman *rumage, a reduced form of Old French arrumage. This was derived from the verb arrumer ‘stow in a hold’, which itself was based on run ‘ship’s hold’. And this in turn was borrowed from Middle Dutch ruim ‘space’, a relative of English room. The verb rummage, derived from the noun, was also used for ‘search a ship’s hold’, which is where the modern notion of ‘rummaging around’ comes from.
=> room
run: run: [14] Run is quite a widespread Germanic verb, represented also by German rennen and Swedish ränna. Its ultimate ancestry is not known, although links have been suggested with Sanskrit rnoti ‘he moves’ and Greek órnūmi ‘rouse’. The Old English verb was rinnan; run, which was originally a past form, did not begin to emerge as the infinitive until the early 14th century, and it was not common until the 16th century. Runnel ‘brook’ [OE] comes from the same Germanic source, and rennet may be related.
=> rennet, runnel
rune: rune: [17] Old English had a word rūn, which appears originally to have denoted ‘mystery’, and hence ‘carved or written character with mysterious or magical properties’. This had died out by the end of the Middle Ages, but its Old Norse relative *rún lived on to become modern Swedish runa and Danish rune, and when antiquarian interest in the ancient runic writing system developed in Britain in the 16th century, they were borrowed into English as rune.
runnel: runnel: see run
rupture: rupture: see corrupt
rural: rural: [15] Latin rūs denoted ‘the country’ (it came ultimately from an Indo-European ancestor meaning ‘open space’, which also produced English room). Its stem form was rūr-, on which was based the adjective rūrālis, source of English rural. A related adjective, this time derived from the nominative form, was rūsticus, which has given English rustic [15], and is also the ultimate source (via Old French rustre ‘ruffian’) of English roister [16].
=> roister, room, rustic
ruse: ruse: [15] Ruse and rush ‘hurry’ are ultimately the same word. Both come from Old French ruser ‘drive back, detour’. From this was derived the noun ruse, which brought the sense ‘detour, deviation’ with it into English. It was used in the context of a hunted animal dodging about and doubling back on its tracks to throw off its pursuers, and this led in the early 17th century to the emergence of the metaphorical sense ‘trick, stratagem’.

The precise origins of Old French ruser are uncertain. It is generally referred to Latin recūsāre ‘refuse’, source of English recusant and possibly of refuse, but it has also been speculated that it came via a Vulgar Latin *rursāre or *rusāre from Latin rursus ‘backwards’.
=> rush
rush: rush: English has two words rush. The plantname [OE] goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *rusk-, which also produced German and Dutch rusch, and may be related to Latin restis ‘rush’. Rush ‘hurry’ [14] goes back ultimately to Old French ruser ‘drive back, detour’, source of English ruse. It reached English via Anglo- Norman russher, where until the 17th century it was used in its original sense ‘drive back, repulse’. The sense ‘hurry’ developed in Anglo- Norman, presumably from some association of the sound of the word with ‘hurrying’.
=> ruse