ruck

From Middle English ruke, from Old Norse. Compare Icelandic hrúka, Swedish ruka.

• IPA^(key): /ɹʌk/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

  • (Northern England) IPA^(key): /ɹʊk/
• Homophone: rook (most accents without foot-strut split)
• Rhymes: -ʌk

ruck (plural rucks)

1. A throng or crowd of people or things; a mass, a pack. [from 16th c.]
   • 1873, Anthony Trollope, Phineas Redux‎, archived from the original on 11 August 2014, Chapter 16:

     Dandolo was constantly in the ditch, sometimes lying with his side against the bank, and had now been so hustled and driven that, had he been on the other side, he would have had no breath left to carry his rider, even in the ruck of the hunt.

2. In Australian rules football
   1. A contest in games in which the ball is thrown or bounced in the air and two players from opposing teams attempt to give their team an advantage, typically by tapping the ball to a teammate.
   2. A player who competes in said contests; a ruckman or ruckwoman.
   3. (now rare) Either of a ruckman or a ruck rover, but not a rover.
   4. Any one of a ruckman, a ruck rover or a rover; a follower.
3. (rugby union) The situation formed when a player carrying the ball is brought to the ground and one or more members of each side are engaged above the ball, trying to win possession of it; a loose scrum. [from 20th c.]
4. The common mass of people or things; the ordinary ranks. [from 19th c.]
   • 1911, Saki, “Tobermory”, in The Chronicles of Clovis:

     ‘Here and there among cats one comes across an outstanding superior intellect, just as one does among the ruck of human beings [...].’

5. (colloquial) An argument or fight.
   • 2023 January 28, Justin Myers, “62 dating green flags that shout ‘this one’s a keeper’”, in The Guardian‎:

     Your worth as a couple is not down to how passionate your rucks are—I said rucks—and how frantic the making-up sex is.

In the second Australian rules football sense, "ruck" is a gender-neutral term. "Ruckman" is sometimes considered to refer only to men, but is often considered gender-neutral. "Ruckwoman" only refers to women.

• maul
• scrum

ruck (third-person singular simple present rucks, present participle rucking, simple past and past participle rucked)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To act as a ruck in a stoppage in Australian rules football.
2. (transitive, rugby union) To contest the possession of the ball in a ruck.

• outruck

1780, from Old Norse hrukka (“wrinkle, crease”), from Proto-Germanic *hrunkijō, *hrunkitō (“fold, wrinkle”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Akin to Icelandic hrukka (“wrinkle, crease, ruck”), Old High German runza (“fold, wrinkle, crease”), German Runzel (“wrinkle”), Middle Dutch ronse (“frown”). More at frounce. Possibly related to Irish roc.

ruck (third-person singular simple present rucks, present participle rucking, simple past and past participle rucked)

1. (transitive) To crease or fold.
   • 1956, C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle, Collins, 1998, Chapter 8:

     Puzzle begged very hard to have the lion-skin taken off him. He said it was too hot and the way it was rucked up on his back was uncomfortable […]

   • 1959, Peter De Vries, The Tents of Wickedness, page 28:

     "What, exactly, happened down cellar?" Appleyard asked, straightening with his heel a rucked rug.

   • 1989, Carol Shields, “Block Out”, in The Collected Stories, Random House Canada, 2004, page 299:

     She wore long dangling earrings faced with mirrors, and white Bermuda shorts rucked back to reveal knees and thighs like waxed maple.

   • 2003, Nadine Gordimer, “L,U, C, I, E.”, in Loot and Other Stories, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux:

     The army had a shooting range up there hidden in the chestnut forests, that was all; like a passing plane rucking the fabric of perfect silence, the shots brought all that shatters continuity in life, the violence of emotions, the trajectories of demands and contests of will.

2. (intransitive) To become creased or folded.
   • 1917, Edith Wharton, chapter XII, in Summer […], New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 178:

     "Will you come over now and try on your dress?" Ally asked, looking at her with wistful admiration. "I want to be sure the sleeves don't ruck up the same as they did yesterday."

• ruck up

• ruche (“to pleat; to bunch up”)
• rutch (“to slide”)

ruck (plural rucks)

1. A crease, a wrinkle, a pucker, as on fabric.

Compare Danish ruge (“to brood, to hatch”).

ruck (third-person singular simple present rucks, present participle rucking, simple past and past participle rucked)

1. (UK, dialect, obsolete) To cower or huddle together; to squat; to sit, as a hen on eggs.
   • c. 1386–1390, John Gower, edited by Reinhold Pauli, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts, volumes (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Bell and Daldy […], published 1857, →OCLC:

     Bot now thei rucken in here nest
     And resten as hem liketh best.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi]:

     The Rauen rook'd her on the Chimnies top,
     And chatt'ring Pies in dismall Discords sung.

ruck (plural rucks)

1. Obsolete form of roc.
   • 1627, Michaell Drayton [i.e., Michael Drayton], “The Battaile of Agin Court”, in The Battaile of Agincourt. […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for VVilliam Lee, […], published 1631, →OCLC, page 14:

     The Henry Royall [a ship], at her parting thence, / Like the Huge Ruck from Gillingham that flevv: […]

Clipping of rucksack.

ruck (plural rucks)

1. (slang, especially military) A rucksack; a large backpack.
   • 2007, Brandon Friedman, The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory, →ISBN, page 57:

     Shah-e-Kot Valley, Afghanistan. March 2002. I strained to see over the soldiers in front of me. They were struggling to shuffle off the bird as quickly as they could. I dragged my ruck across the floor of the aircraft in my right hand.

   • 2013 July 5, Brad McLeod, Top 10 Ruck Marching Tips‎, accessed 17 JUL 2015:

     First of all – a “ruck” is nothing more than a backpack. So to "ruck march" is to carry a heavy duty backpack on a hike (loaded with gear and supplies).

   • 2015, Sean T. Smith, Wrath and Redemption, →ISBN:

     Rocky was only five foot six and skinny as a February coyote, but he could hump an eighty pound ruck across twenty mountain miles […]

ruck (third-person singular simple present rucks, present participle rucking, simple past and past participle rucked)

1. To carry a backpack while hiking or marching.
   • 2015 June 16, Brandon Cole, “Mount Vernon's Barnes to Compete in "Death Race"”, in the Posey County News, page 13:

     He started at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday as he began rucking to church. He changed his clothes, went to church and then began rucking again. That distance totaled about nine miles. Rucking is hiking with a military style backpack, filled with weight.

• rucksack
• backpack
• backpacking

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

ruck (plural rucks)

1. A small heifer.

• Jonathon Green (2024) “ruck n.²”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• IPA^(key): /ʁœk/

ruck m (plural rucks)

1. (rugby) ruck

From Middle English rokke.

• IPA^(key): /ɾʊk/

ruck

1. rock

   Synonym: carrick

   • 1927, “LAMENT OF A WIDOW”, in THE ANCIENT DIALECT OF THE BARONIES OF FORTH AND BARGY, COUNTY WEXFORD, page 130, line 2:

     To a ruck or to a stone.

     To a rock or to a stone,

• Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 130