ruddy

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Reddish in color, especially of the face, fire, or sky.

   • Drystone walls, farm buildings and stone cottages, roofed with ruddy tiles, line the way and blend gently into the surrounding countryside.
   • A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded him, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks.
   • Frank, who is narrow and ruddy, and who tended to wear a shirt and tie with a cherry-red beanie pulled low over one ear, swapped his white butcher’s coat for a puffer jacket, and led me outside
2. 2

   Robust and vigorous, like a person with a red complexion (as compared to a pale one).

   • in ruddy health
3. 3

   A mild intensifier, expressing irritation.

   • "Sister?" I inquired. "She ain't 'ere," a man's voice said. "What's more," it went on, "she ain't been 'ere for ruddy hours, neither. Can't you pull them ruddy curtains, mate, and let's 'ave some flippin' light?"
   • Michael, you have been sitting on your butt for the last two hours! Why didn't you mow the ruddy lawn?!!
4. ›+ 4 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      A ruddy duck.

      • In winter, snow geese land at West Pond, a Robert Moses legacy that ought to be called Duck Soup: at this time of year look for ruddies, greater scaups, Northern pintails, American widgeons and gadwalls.
   2. 5

      A ruddy ground dove.

      • Ground doves — two ruddies are shown here — are so called because they feed on the ground.
      • Common Ground-Dove — Fairly common permanent resident of better-watered valleys at lower elevations. Avoids town [...] Ironically, Ruddies often ignore the little flocks of closely related Commons, and choose to associate with Inca Doves.
   3. 6

      To make reddish in colour.

      • The sunset ruddied our faces.
      • It ruddied all the copse-wood glen
   4. 7

      A surname.

The neighborhood

• synonymbally
• synonymbleeding
• synonymblimming
• synonymbloody
• synonymblooming