Word of the Day

Thursday, August 31, 2000

rusticate

\RUHS-tih-kayt\ , intransitive verb;

To go into or reside in the country; to pursue a rustic life.

transitive verb:

To require or compel to reside in the country; to banish or send away temporarily.

(Chiefly British). To suspend from school or college.

To build with usually rough-surfaced masonry blocks having beveled or rebated edges producing pronounced joints.

To lend a rustic character to; to cause to become rustic.

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Quotes:

Ezra holds out in London, and refuses to rusticate.

-- T. S. Eliot to Conrad Aiken, "21 August 1916", The Letters of T. S. Eliot: Volume I, 1898-1922 edited by Valerie Eliot

For the longest time, we're stuck in a cabin hewn out of the ground in a parcel of woods as the boys hide and mend; for another, we rusticate on a farm bounded by fields that must be tilled by the hard labor of man and beast.

-- Stephen Hunter, "When Johnny Doesn't Come Marching Home", Washington Post, December 17, 1999

Czechoslovak Communists would imprison or rusticate those who had been active in the Prague Spring.

-- Charles S. Maier, Dissolution

Origin:

Rusticate comes from the past participle of Latin rusticari, "to live in the country," from rusticus, "rural, rustic," from rus, "the country."