Ruse

How to spell ruse

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ruse

What does ruse mean?

1. nounA trick or deliberate scheme used to deceive someone or gain an advantage.

Ruse in a sentence

• The fake phone call was a ruse to get her out of the office.

• The discount turned out to be a ruse to collect customer details.

Where does ruse come from?

Language of origin: French

The word came into English in the 1400s from the Old French ruse, a noun meaning 'a trick' or 'a dodge', which was formed from the verb ruser, 'to dodge', 'to swerve aside', or 'to drive back'. In its earliest life the term belonged to hunting: it described the way a hunted animal such as a deer would double back on its own tracks to throw the hounds off the scent, so the original idea was very physical and evasive before it softened into the general sense of a clever deception. The deeper source of ruser is debated; many trace it to the Latin recusare, 'to refuse' or 'to object to', while others link it to rursus, 'backwards', and the uncertainty is genuine. The same French verb gave English the rarer word 'rusee', and the hunting flavour survives in the idea of an animal 'running a ruse'. For spelling, it helps to remember the word rhymes with 'muse' and 'fuse' and keeps the simple French shape: r-u-s-e, with a silent final e and no doubled letters.

How the word is built

• ruse (a single root from French ruse: a dodge or trick; no separable prefix or suffix)