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''rue'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260822002005-00-⌔

rue - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

rue (uncountable)

  • (archaic or dialectal) Sorrow; repentance; regret.
    • ✤ Synonyms: contrition, misery, unhappiness; see also Thesaurus: sadness, Thesaurus: remorse
    • ✤ When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again,/“The heart out of the bosom was never given in vain;/‘Tis paid with sighs aplenty and sold for endless rue.”/And I am two-and-twenty, and oh, ‘tis true,‘tis true.1
  • (archaic or dialectal) Pity; compassion.
    • ✤ Synonyms: ruth, sympathy; see also Thesaurus: compassion

Verb

rue (third-person singular simple present rues, present participleruing or rueing, simple past and past participle rued)

  • (transitive) To repent of or regret (some past action or event); to wish that a past action or event had not taken place.
    • ✤ Synonyms: afterthink, deprecate, regret, repent
    • ✤ to rue the day
    • ✤ I rued the day I crossed paths with her.
    • ✤ I wept to see, and rued it from my heart.2
    • ✤ Thy will chose freely what it now so justly rues.3
    • ✤ And feminization of the homeland is something to be rued, while the feminized humiliation of the enemy for the sake of the fatherland is cause for commendation and celebration.4
    • ✤ And was the fact she was no longer losing large chunks of time something to be celebrated or something to be rued?5
    • ✤ “If we get in a fight, you’ll be ruing your lack of training.”6
    • ✤ Nicola Sturgeon rues descent into ‘toxic’ debate on topics such as equal marriage[title]7
    • ✤ The line used to continue to Ilfracombe, but that was closed in 1970 - another short-sighted decision that is still rued today.8
  • (obsolete, transitive) To cause to repent of sin or regret some past action.
    • ✤ Synonyms: forthink, put the fear of God into, think over
  • (obsolete, transitive) To cause to feel sorrow or pity.
    • ✤ Synonyms: deject, depress; see also Thesaurus: sadden
  • (archaic or obsolete, intransitive, often with on or upon) To feel compassion or pity; to take pity (on), to have compassion (on).
    • ✤ Synonyms: commiserate, compassionate, feel sorry for, mercify; see also Thesaurus: pity
    • ✤ […] till our Lord’s clouds rue upon the earth, and send down a watring of rain: Truly, I think Christ’s misty dew a welcome message from heaven, till my Lord’s rain fall: […]9
    • ✤ which stirred men’s hearts to rue upon them10
    • ✤ * Rue on thy despairing lover! Canst thou break his faithfu’ heart?*11
  • (archaic, intransitive) To feel sorrow or regret.
    • ✤ Synonyms: grieve, mourn; see also Thesaurus: be sad
    • ✤ Old year, we’ll dearly rue for you.12

Noun

rue (countable and uncountable, plural rues)

  • Any of various perennial shrubs of the genus Ruta, especially the herb Ruta graveolens (common rue), formerly used in medicines.
    • ✤ But th’aged Nourse, her calling to her bowre,/Had gathered Rew, and Savine, and the flowre/Of Camphora, and Calamint, and Dill […].13
    • ✤ Ophelia:
      There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference.      14
    • ✤ The life of one plant would be affected by another. Rue was definitely hostile to basil, rosemary to hyssop, but coriander, dill and chervil lived on the friendliest of terms[.]15
    • ✤ Like the water lily, endive, and lettuce, rue was believed to have anti-aphrodisiac properties.16

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ɹuː/
  • (Standard Southern British) IPA: /ɹʉw/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ɹu/
  • (Australia, New Zealand) IPA: /ɹʉw/
  • (Wales) IPA: /ɾɪʊ/
  • (Scotland) IPA: /ɾʉ/
  • (Northern Ireland) IPA: /ɻʉ/
  • Rhymes: -uː
  • Homophones: roo, roux (both yod-dropping)

Etymology 1

From Middle English rewe, reowe, from Old English hrēow (“sorrow, regret, penitence, repentance, penance”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡hreuwu (“pain, sadness, regret, repentance”). Cognates include German reuen (“to regret, to repent”) and Dutch rouwen (“to mourn, to grieve”).

Probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡krows-. If so, note the same sense evolution with in this case cognate Russian круши́ть (krušítʹ, “to destroy, to shatter”), Russian сокруша́ться (sokrušátʹsja, “to be distressed, to grieve (for, over)”). Also compare Czech truchlit from Proto-Slavic ﹡truxlъ.

Etymology 2

From Middle English rewen, ruwen, ruen, reowen, from Old English hrēowan (“to rue; make sorry; grieve”), perhaps influenced by Old Norse hryggja (“to distress, grieve”), from Proto-Germanic ﹡hrewwaną (“to sadden; repent”).

Etymology 3

🖼️ ➺

From Middle English rue, from Anglo-Norman ruwe, Old French rue, from Latin rūta, from Ancient Greek ῥυτή (rhutḗ).

Printed 2026-08-22.

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Footnotes

  1. 1896, A[lfred] E[dward] Housman, “[Poem] XIII”, in A Shropshire Lad, New York, N.Y.: John Lane Company, The Bodley Head, published 1906, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 21: ↩

  2. 1614–1615, Homer, “”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., Homer’s Odysses. […], London: […] Rich[ard] Field [and William Jaggard], for Nathaniell Butter, published 1615, →OCLC; republished in The Odysseys of Homer, […], volume, London: John Russell Smith, […], 1857, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC: ↩

  4. 2009, David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: ↩

  5. 2012, Joy Fielding, Still Life: ↩

  6. 2014, Gary Meehan, True Fire: ↩

  7. 2024 December 16, Libby Brooks, “Nicola Sturgeon rues descent into ‘toxic’ debate on topics such as equal marriage”, in The Guardian ‎, →ISSN: ↩

  8. 2025 November 12, ‘Mystery Shopper’, “Is Devon the cream of the crop?”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 48: ↩

  9. 1724, Samuel Rutherford, Mr. Rutherfoord’s Letters, now divided in three parts… The fifth edition, page 316: ↩

  10. 1842, Nicholas Ridley, The Life of Nicholas Ridley ↩

  11. 1852, Robert Burns, Poetical works (Fair Eliza), page 38: ↩

  12. 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Death of the Old Year”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC: ↩

  13. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC: ↩

  14. c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]: ↩

  15. 1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 253: ↩

  16. 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 211: ↩