Doreen Tovey
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In Old English, there were two related words referring to red coloring: rēad and rudu. Rēad evolved into our present-day red. Rudu evolved into rud (a word now encountered only in dialect or archaic usage) and ruddy. Most often, ruddy is applied to the face when it has the red glow of good health or is red from a suffusion of blood from exercise or excitement. It is also used in the names of some birds, such as the American ruddy duck. In British English, ruddy is also used as a colorful euphemism for the sometimes offensive intensive bloody, as 20th-century English writer Sir Kingsley Amis illustrates in The Riverside Villas Murder: "Ruddy marvelous, the way these coppers' minds work.... I take a swing at Chris Inman in public means I probably done him in."
Examples of ruddy in a Sentence
Bill Addison, Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 2026
Pentecostal revival meeting lights and condominium-sale advertisements illuminate the city, leaving a ruddy glow along the highway.
—Edna Bonhomme, Artforum, 1 Oct. 2025
Andersen, who previously worked for the San Antonio Police Department, has ruddy cheeks and a commanding presence.
—Rachel Monroe, New Yorker, 16 Sep. 2025
Earth's shadow slips from the lunar disk Earth's umbra will begin to slip from the lunar disk at 2:52 p.m. EDT (1852 GMT), revealing a bright crescent on the left edge of its disk that will grow to engulf the entirety of the moon's surface, banishing the ruddy glow of totality.
—Anthony Wood, Space.com, 6 Sep. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Ruddy.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ruddy. Accessed 9 Jan. 2026.
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Medical Definition
ruddy
adjective
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