Word of the Day

: November 19, 2015

ruly

adjective ROO-lee

What It Means

: obedient, orderly

ruly in Context

As far as groups of young children go, this one was unusually ruly: the youngsters were all fully engaged in building with a large set of colored blocks.

"My hair is ruly, in fact, and I get it cut at least once a month." — Mike Pound, The Joplin (Missouri) Globe, 22 June 2013

Did You Know?

You're probably familiar with unruly, meaning "not readily controlled or disciplined." It's a useful word, along with such synonyms as defiant and willful. It has plenty of antonyms too, among them the wholly logical ruly. Haven't heard of ruly till now? We're not surprised. Ruly and unruly are of the same 15th-century vintage, but the former never caught on the way unruly did. The more common unruly is also the older of the pair: ruly was formed by a process called "back-formation" from unruly. Ultimately, both words come from reuly, a Middle English word meaning "disciplined." Reuly in turn comes from Middle English reule, a predecessor of rule.