RUDE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Rude

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/rud/ Listen

adjective

Rude adj. (compar. ruder; superl. rudest)

1.

Characterized by roughness; umpolished; raw; lacking delicacy or refinement; coarse. "Such gardening tools as art, yet rude,... had formed."

2.

Hence, specifically:

(a)

Unformed by taste or skill; not nicely finished; not smoothed or polished; said especially of material things; as, rude workmanship. "Rude was the cloth." "Rude and unpolished stones." "The heaven-born child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies."

(b)

Of untaught manners; unpolished; of low rank; uncivil; clownish; ignorant; raw; unskillful; said of persons, or of conduct, skill, and the like. "Mine ancestors were rude." "He was but rude in the profession of arms." "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

(c)

Violent; tumultuous; boisterous; inclement; harsh; severe; said of the weather, of storms, and the like; as, the rude winter. "(Clouds) pushed with winds, rude in their shock." "The rude agitation (of water) breaks it into foam."

(d)

Barbarous; fierce; bloody; impetuous; said of war, conflict, and the like; as, the rude shock of armies.

(e)

Not finished or complete; inelegant; lacking chasteness or elegance; not in good taste; unsatisfactory in mode of treatment; said of literature, language, style, and the like. "The rude Irish books." "Rude am I in my speech." "Unblemished by my rude translation."

Synonyms: Impertinent; rough; uneven; shapeless; unfashioned; rugged; artless; unpolished; uncouth; inelegant; rustic; coarse; vulgar; clownish; raw; unskillful; untaught; illiterate; ignorant; uncivil; impolite; saucy; impudent; insolent; surly; currish; churlish; brutal; uncivilized; barbarous; savage; violent; fierce; tumultuous; turbulent; impetuous; boisterous; harsh; inclement; severe. See Impertiment.

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Etymology of 'Rude'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rude" Quotes from Famous Books

... you," said her mother, wringing out the caps from the tub. "When your brother began, you ought to have waited to see if he could not tell the story. How rude you look, pushing and frowning, as if you wanted to conquer with your elbows! Cincinnatus, I am sure, would have been sorry to see his daughter behave so." (Mrs. Garth delivered this awful sentence with much majesty of enunciation, and Letty felt that between repressed volubility and general disesteem, ...

— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... went on staring at the children, and a crowd soon gathered round them. Presently some rude boys began to ask them all sorts of questions and to laugh at them. Nelly did not like it at all. She thought she would not wait for her father any longer, but go home. They tried to turn back, but found Chinese all round them, and felt quite frightened. ...

— The Little Girl Lost - A Tale for Little Girls • Eleanor Raper

... him on the matted floor. He then drew from his kimono sleeve a pink-bordered foreign pocket-handkerchief, and began to mop his damp forehead. Kano's politeness could not hide, entirely, a shudder of antipathy. He hurried into new speech. "And where, if it is not rude to ask, has my friend Ando sojourned during ...

— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa

... of coaching they attributed considerable of their success on the diamond of recent months. If only his rules were strictly adhered to it was possible that Allandale and Belleville might be due for another rude surprise when they came over, bent on carrying off the majority of the ...

— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... travels lighted on a strangely shaped mountain, whose huge curves, and sombre colouring have interested me indefinably. In the rude mass at the far angle, Mr. Jos. Larkin, I fancy, found some such subject of contemplation. And the more he looked, the more he felt disposed ...

— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

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