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rouge

adjectivenounverbattested in dialogue

  • //ˈɹuːʒ//
  • /[ˈɹʷʊu̯ʒ]/

Of a reddish pink colour.

adjective

  1. 1

    Of a reddish pink colour.

Etymology

Borrowed from French rouge, from Latin rubeus. Compare rare Middle English rouge, rouȝ (“red”); later borrowed again, as it is not attested until c. 1750. The game senses are of unknown origin according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

noun

  1. 1

    Red or pink makeup to add colour to the cheeks; blusher.

    Before we could embark on the details of his mother's health we were joined by a fair, plump woman of indefinite age, who had once been—and at moments still was—very pretty. She wore a simple black silk dress, perhaps in deference to Tilly's death, though the note of mourning was jarred by flamboyant aquamarine ear-rings and too much rouge.

  2. 2

    Any reddish pink colour.

  3. 3

    A single point awarded when a team kicks the ball out of its opponent's end zone, or when a kicked ball becomes dead within the non-kicking team's end zone. Etymology uncertain; it is thought that in the early years of the sport, a red flag indicated that a single had been scored.

  4. 4

    obsoleteIn the Eton wall game, a scrummage, melée.

    [A] wall [...] against which all those formidable "rouges" (as they are most underivably called) take place; in which above twenty players contend, kicking each others' shins nearly as often as the ball

  5. 5

    In the Eton College field game, a scoring move accomplished by touching the ball down behind the opponents' goal-line (somewhat similar to the try in rugby). Originally, the player who scored the rouge had a chance to kick a goal, and the rouge was used as a tie-breaker if an equal number of goals was scored by each side. In the contemporary Eton College field game, a five-point score is awarded for kicking the ball so that it deflects off one of the opposing players and goes beyond the opposition's end of the pitch, and then touching the ball.

    The 7 got 1 "gaol" and 1 "ruge"; the 11 got 1 "gaol" and 4 "ruges"

    A rouge is obtained by touching the ball first, after it has been kicked behind

  6. 6

    obsoleteFrom 1862 to 1868, a similar scoring move in Sheffield rules football. From 1862 to 1867, accomplished by touching the ball down after it had been kicked between two "rouge flags" either side of the goal. From 1867-1868, awarded for kicking the ball between the rouge flags and under the crossbar.

    A rouge is obtained by the player who first touches the ball after it has been kicked between the rouge flags

  7. 7

    archaicA red amorphous powder consisting of ferric oxide, used in polishing and as a cosmetic; crocus; jeweller's rouge.

verb

  1. 1

    To apply rouge (makeup).

    She rouged her face before setting out for the party.

    She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there was any harm in it.

Forms

plural
rouges
comparative
more rouge
superlative
most rouge
past tense
rouged
past participle
rouged
present participle
rouging
third person singular
rouges
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).