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rue

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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

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

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.