Rusty

How to spell rusty

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rusty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rusty mean?

1. adjectiveCoated with rust, the reddish-brown crust that forms on iron and steel when they corrode.
2. adjectiveLacking former skill or fluency through long lack of practice.

Rusty in a sentence

• The old gate was so rusty that the hinges would barely move.

• My French is a little rusty after years of not speaking it.

• He found a rusty bicycle abandoned at the back of the shed.

• She felt rusty at the keyboard after a long break from playing.

Where does rusty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, formed from the noun 'rust' plus the common adjective ending '-y' that means 'full of' or 'characterised by'. The root 'rust' descends from Old English 'rust', a word of Germanic stock that is related to 'red', because the reddish-brown crust that forms on iron shares its colour name with that ancestral root for redness. Cousins survive across the Germanic languages, including Dutch 'roest' and German 'Rost', all pointing back to the same colour idea. The literal sense, coated with the reddish flaky product of oxidising metal, is the oldest, and English speakers had it firmly by the medieval period. The figurative sense, meaning out of practice and therefore not working smoothly, grew naturally from the picture of a neglected tool seizing up, and it was well established by the 1700s.

How the word is built

• rust (corroded iron coating)
• -y (adjective suffix: full of, characterised by)