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Etymology and origin of the English word rue

English has two words spelled rue: the verb meaning to regret, with its noun "sorrow", inherited from Old English, and the name of a bitter herb, borrowed from French.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

rue1 to regret; sorrow

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
899 before 899, Alfred's translation of Boethius
Inherited from
Old English hreow via Middle English, Old English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *hrewwaną

Etymology

The verb meaning to regret is inherited from Middle English rewen, later ruen,[3][2][5] inherited from Old English hrēowan (“to make sorry, grieve”), a strong verb,[6][7][8][3] which merged with the weak verb hrēowian (“to feel pain or sorrow”).[7][6][3] It comes from Proto-Germanic *hrewwaną,[9] and is cognate with Old Frisian riōwa, Middle Dutch rouwen and its descendant rouwen (“to mourn”), Old Saxon hreuwan and Old High German hriuwan, now reuen;[7][3][10][5] Old Norse hryggja (“to make sad”) is related and may have influenced it.[6][3] The further origin is uncertain:[7][1] Barnhart and Etymonline trace it to Proto-Indo-European *kreu- (“to hit hard, push, strike”),[3][6][9] and Merriam-Webster perhaps compares Ancient Greek κρούω (kroúō, “to strike”) and Lithuanian krušti (“to stamp, smash”).[2] The noun is inherited from Middle English rewe,[2][5] inherited from Old English hrēow (“grief, repentance, sorrow”),[6][7][11] from the same Germanic base, and is cognate with Middle Dutch rouwe, Dutch rouw (“mourning”), Old High German hriuwa and German Reue (“remorse”).[7][5][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old English hrēowan was mostly used impersonally, with the person who feels it as object: it "rued" someone, made him sorry, distressed or grieved him.[7][6][8] Barnhart's first record is in King Alfred's translation of Boethius, before 899;[3] the noun hrēow, grief or repentance, is found about 725 in Beowulf according to Barnhart.[3]

Semantic evolution

The old transitive sense, to make someone sorry, gave way to a personal one: the sense "to repent of, regret something" appears about 1200 according to Etymonline,[6] and the OED dates its use with a personal subject, regretting an act and wishing it undone, from about 1335.[7] The intransitive sense, to be sorrowful or penitent, is recorded from the 14th century,[6] and to rue the day from about 1461.[7] In the early Middle English period the verb also meant to make someone feel pity, a sense now lost;[1][10] ruth, pity, was formed from it.[1] the noun rue too meant pity or compassion from about 1325.[7] The noun now survives chiefly in rueful,[1][11] and is archaic except in Scots.[10] In Scotland and the north of England the verb was still in everyday use for regretting or repenting in the 19th century,[13] and to take the rue, to repent or change one's mind, is recorded in Scottish and Irish English from 1789.[7][10]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – the noun hrēow, sorrow, in Beowulf.[3]
  • before 899 – the verb, to make sorry, grieve.[3]
  • c. 1150 – Middle English rewen.[3]
  • c. 1200 – to repent of, regret.[6]
  • c. 1325 – noun, pity, compassion.[7]
  • c. 1335 – with a personal subject, to regret an act and wish it undone.[7]
  • c. 1461 – to rue the day.[7]
  • 1789 – to take the rue, Scottish and Irish English.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To feel regret or remorse for something; to wish something undone: He soon rued his hasty words.[2][14][7]
  2. rue the day: to regret bitterly that something ever happened.[7][13]
  3. (archaic) To feel sorrow or repentance.[2][7]
  4. (Scotland) To regret a bargain or change one's mind.[2][7]
  5. (obsolete) To affect someone with pity or compassion.[2][10]

Noun

  1. (archaic) Sorrow, regret or repentance.[14][2][10]
  2. (archaic) Pity, compassion.[2][7]

Word family

  • rueful
  • ruer

rue2 the herb

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1200 before 1200?, translation of Pseudo-Apuleius's herbal
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman ruwe via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin rūta
Etymology tree of rue2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin ruta
French rue
English rue

Etymology

The plant is inherited from Middle English rue, also ruwe and rewe,[2] borrowed from Anglo-Norman ruwe and Old French rue,[7][3][6][10] earlier rude,[7][6] from Latin rūta,[7][6][3][5] probably from Ancient Greek ῥῡτή (rhūtḗ),[3][6][1] which is of uncertain origin.[3][5] Etymonline says the Greek word was originally a Peloponnesian name for the common πήγανον (pḗganon), itself probably Pre-Greek, and that some see the Latin and Greek words as borrowed from a Mediterranean language.[6] Beekes takes pḗganon as probably Pre-Greek.[15] The Latin word had already been borrowed into Old English as rūde,[7][16] and is the source of German Raute, Italian ruta and Spanish ruda.[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

The bitter-leaved herb Ruta graveolens and its relatives: in an English translation of the herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius dated perhaps before 1200, in the OED;[7] before 1300 in Barnhart,[3] the 13th century in Merriam-Webster[2] and the late 14th century in Etymonline.[6] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the second half of the 12th century.[17]

Semantic evolution

The herb was much used in medicine in the Middle Ages,[6][10] and Johnson (1755) explained its other name, herb of grace, from holy water being sprinkled with it.[18] Its strong smell and bitter leaves led to puns on rue, regret, from about 1500;[7][6] Weekley quotes Richard II: "I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace".[16] From 1548, in William Turner's Names of Herbes, the name was given with a distinguishing word to other plants that look like rue, such as meadow rue and goat's rue.[7][10]

Timeline

  • before 1200? – the herb rue.[7]
  • c. 1500 – with punning allusion to rue, sorrow.[7]
  • 1548 – other plants resembling rue, with a distinguishing word.[7][10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A strong-smelling, bitter evergreen herb of southern Europe, Ruta graveolens, with yellow flowers and much-divided leaves, formerly used in medicine; also called herb of grace.[2][10][7]
  2. Any of various plants of other genera that resemble it, named with a distinguishing word.[10][7]

Word family

  • meadow rue

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  16. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  17. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.

Related etymologies

  • eldest · also from Old English
  • scrub · also from Old English
  • shale · also from Old English
  • midway · also from Old English
  • ale · also from Old English
  • pike · also from Old English
  • strand · also from Old English
  • staple · also from Old English
Cite this entry

“Rue.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/rue. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

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