ruggy

(sense 2) rug +‎ -y

• IPA^(key): /ˈrʌɡi/
• Rhymes: -ʌɡi

ruggy (comparative ruggier or more ruggy, superlative ruggiest or most ruggy)

1. fusty, frowsy
   • 1897 September 3, “Thousands Massacred”, in Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, number 28, Pittsburgh, Penn., section “A Previous War of the English With the Afghans in Which a Whole Army Perished”, page 6, column 6:

     The district is mountainous, and the mountains are among the ruggiest on the face of the earth, huge masses of broken crags, precipices many hundreds of feet in height, inaccessible peaks the sides of which are covered with snow that never melts.

   • 1912 March 11, “Trendall Meets Near Champion in Grover Hayes”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Mo., page 10, column 2:

     Hayes is one of the ruggiest men in the game. He has fought most of the cracks of his weight in the country and one or two from England.

   • 1930 June 22, “New Ventilation System Aboard Duchess Liners”, in The Nashville Tennessean, volume 25, number 44, Nashville, Tenn., page 6, column 1:

     Fresh air pumped through the ventilators to any degree of temperature, hot or cold, enables the air throughout the entire ship to be changed every eight [?]an, which only serves in most cases to stir up “dead air,” this system is particularly useful during hot seasons, for the air is passed through a cooling system to that every room on board can be kept fresh even in the ruggiest of weather.

   • 1963 November 23, Ducky Stewart, “Hunters’ tastes have streamlined”, in Wilmington Morning News, volume 164, number 126, Wilmington, Del., page 31, columns 5–6:

     The labs and golden retrievers replaced the Irish spaniel. Personally, we’re still and always will be a Chesapeake Bay retriever fan—the sturdiest and ruggiest of ’em all.

   • 1971, Jug Suraiya, The Interview and Other Stories, Writers Workshop:

     I went over too and we both sat on the ruggy floor and selected discs.

   • 1975, John Updike, A Month of Sundays, New York, N.Y.: Fawcett Books, published 1996, →ISBN, →LCCN, page 36:

     Though the sight of her, then, I turning for one last, upward glance, the stairs descended, her legs cut off at the ankle and her propping arms “bled” from the rectangle framing her silhouette, the sight of her, I say, before I turned and pulled open the barking door to the breezy world, still so moves this abandoning heart that a less tension-loving typist would be driven again to the ruggy floor of his padded cell.

2. Of, relating to, or resembling a rug.
   • 1933 July 9, Ellis Parker Butler, “Enough Is Sufficient”, in Los Angeles Times, volume LII, page 16, column 2:

     Everyone but the Terrys had given Alice rugs. It was the ruggiest wedding the world had ever known.

   • 1959 December 29, Frost’s Carpets and Rugs, “Pre-Inventory: Price Reductions on Our Regular Merchandise”, in Simpsons’ Daily Leader-Times, volume 72, number 305, Kittanning, Pa., page 10:

     Acrilan “Ruggy” Bears (floor samples)

   • 1964 November 13, Johnny Hopkins, “Johnny Hopkins … reports”, in The Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alta., page 29:

     THERE ARE RUGS. And there are rugs. And the ruggiest rug in the city, I’m sure, is in the lounge in the sergeants’ mess at Sarcee.

   • 1970 April 14, Dick Larson, “The Rug-Bug!: Original Poetry”, in Corvallis Gazette-Times, volume 62, number 293, Corvallis, Or., page A-9:

     Let’s cut a rug! Or give a rug a hug! Or get the ruggiest bug! (We’ve got a slug of decorator rugs!)

   • 2006, Country Living, volume 29:

     Then in 1868, a Maine peddler named Edward Sand Frost began stenciling—and selling—his own hooked-rug designs on burlap. Soon, other entrepreneurs followed suit, and the kit craze was off and running. Rather like ruggy versions of paint-by-number sets, these temptingly convenient pre-stenciled patterns were at once a boon to the artistically challenged and a bane to original enterprise.

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary

ruggy

1. rugged; rough
   • late 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, The Canterbury Tales, line 2882-2883:

     Tho cam this woful Theban Palamoun,
     With flotery berd, and ruggy asshy heres, [...]

     Then came this woeful Theban Palamon,
     With waving beard and rough hair sprinkled with ashes,