ruse

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French ruse (“a detour made by a hunted animal; a trick”),^[2][3] given by Etymonline and Barnhart as Old French ruse or reüse,^[4][5] a noun from the verb ruser, earlier reüser (“to drive back; to dodge, retreat”).^[2][4][5][6] In French the noun is recorded in the hunting sense from the 12th century and in the sense "trick, stratagem" from about 1280.^[2] The further origin of the verb is uncertain and disputed.^[2][7] Etymonline, Barnhart, Partridge and Skeat derive it from Latin recūsō (“to object to, refuse, reject”),^[4][5][8][9] formed from re- and causor (“to plead as a reason, object”), from causa (“reason, cause”).^[5][9] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English suggest instead rūrsus (“backwards”),^[10][11] Klein a Vulgar Latin frequentative of refundō (“to pour back; to reject”),^[6] and Weekley mentions a suggested Vulgar Latin form from tundō (“to beat”), which he found phonetically more likely.^[12] Middle English also had a verb rusen (“to drive back in battle; to retreat”),^[4][2] from Anglo-Norman rëuser.^[2] The same French verb is the source of rush, to hurry.^[13][14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The detour or doubling back of a hunted animal trying to escape the hounds: about 1410, in Edward, Duke of York's Master of Game, where a hare "shal make hure ruses".^[16][2] The same text also uses it for a roundabout course taken by a hunter to close in on the quarry.^[16][2][4]

Semantic evolution

Ayto describes the first sense as the hunted animal dodging about and doubling back on its tracks;^[13] from such evasions the word came to mean any trick meant to deceive.^[13][14] The general sense "trick, stratagem, wile" is recorded in the OED from 1581;^[2][3] Etymonline and Barnhart date it to the 1620s.^[4][5] The hunting sense survives only as a historical and rare term.^[2][10] Johnson (1755) defined it as "cunning; artifice; little stratagem; trick" and called it "a French word neither elegant nor necessary".^[17][4] The mass noun, trickery or cunning, is recorded from 1807.^[2] The adjective rusé, given to ruses, sly, was borrowed from French in 1689.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1410 – the detour of a hunted animal; also a hunter's roundabout course towards the quarry.^[16][2]
• 1581 – a trick or stratagem.^[2][3] Barnhart dates this sense to 1625.^[5]
• 1689 – the adjective rusé, sly, from French.^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson enters it as a needless French word.^[17]
• 1807 – as a mass noun, trickery, cunning.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An action or plan meant to mislead or deceive; a stratagem or trick: The fake phone call was a ruse to get him out of the office.^[18][3][2]
2. Trickery or cunning in general.^[2][17]
3. (historical) A detour or doubling back made by a hunted animal to escape capture.^[2][16]

Related words

• ruse de guerre
• recuse
• rush
• cause
• rusé

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
9. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
16. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
17. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins