Rough

How to spell rough

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rough

What does rough mean?

1. adjectiveHaving an uneven or coarse surface, or not smooth, gentle, or refined.

Rough in a sentence

• The sea was very rough today.

• The road was rough in places.

Where does rough come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Rough comes from the Old English rūh, which meant shaggy, hairy, or coarse, and it is part of the native Germanic core of English rather than a later borrowing. Related forms appear right across the Germanic family, including the Dutch ruig and the German rauh, all pointing back to a shared ancestor describing a bristly or uneven surface. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from physical coarseness to cover stormy weather, harsh treatment, and unfinished or approximate work. The spelling is the real trap: the letters 'ough' were once pronounced with a throaty back-of-the-mouth sound that English later softened, here landing on an 'f' sound, which is why rough rhymes with stuff yet looks nothing like it. The same 'ough' cluster behaves completely differently in through, though, and cough, which is exactly what makes this small word so disproportionately hard to spell from memory.

How the word is built

• rough (single Old English root rūh: shaggy, coarse; no separable prefix or suffix)