rough
Definitions
General English
- adjective not finished, or with no details
General Science
Cars & Driving
- adjective if an engine sounds rough it is running unevenly, probably caused by misfiring or worn crankshaft bearings
Marketing
- noun the outline plan of an illustration for an advertisement
Publishing
- noun a rough sketch of artwork
Slang
- adjective unpleasant, distasteful, disgusting. The standard term became an all-purpose pejorative in working-class speech and then a vogue word among adolescents and then younger schoolchildren from the mid-1990s.
- adjective excellent. The process whereby negative becomes positive operated particularly rapidly in the case of rough, which by the late 1990s was being used appreciatively.
Wine
- used to describe a wine that has a harsh texture or flavour due to an excess of tannin or acid. In some wines this character can dissipate with ageing.
Origin & History of “rough”
Rough goes
back to a prehistoric
west Germanic *
rūkhwaz,
which also produced German
rauh and Dutch
ruw. Despite the similarity of
form and
sense,
ruffian is not related, and
there is no evidence
that ruffle is
either.
