rusty
adjective
covered with or affected by rust.
rusty
1 American
[ruhs-tee]
/ ˈrʌs ti /
adjective
-
rustier,
comparative
-
rustiest
superlative
-
covered with or affected by rust.
-
consisting of or produced by rust.
-
of or tending toward the color rust; rust-colored.
-
faded or shabby; impaired by time or wear, as clothes or drapery.
-
impaired through disuse or neglect.
My Latin is rusty.
-
having lost agility or alertness; out of practice.
I am a bit rusty at tennis.
-
(of a sound) grating or harsh.
rusty
2
American
[ruhs-tee]
/ ˈrʌs ti /
Rusty
3
American
[ruhs-tee]
/ ˈrʌs ti /
noun
rusty
British
/ ˈrʌstɪ /
adjective
-
covered with, affected by, or consisting of rust
a rusty machine
a rusty deposit
-
of the colour rust
-
discoloured by age
a rusty coat
-
(of the voice) tending to croak
-
old-fashioned in appearance; seemingly antiquated
a rusty old gentleman
-
out of practice; impaired in skill or knowledge by inaction or neglect
-
(of plants) affected by the rust fungus
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of rusty1
First recorded before 900; Middle English rusti, Old English rūstig; see origin at rust, -y 1
Origin of rusty2
First recorded in 1555–65; apparently special use of rusty 1, but compare obsolete resty restive
Explanation
If your German is rusty, it's like the bike you left out in the rain too many times that turned brown and flakey on the metal parts. Like your bike, your German skills became rusty, meaning they're suffering from neglect. You can also describe yourself as rusty: you used to do flips on your skateboard, but you haven't practiced in a while and now you're a little rusty. Rusty can also refer to the color of rust, which is a reddish-brown — a rusty-colored dog, for instance. Anything made of iron or steel that you leave outside in the elements is likely to oxidize and become rusty, covered with rust.
Vocabulary lists containing rusty
Beowulf vocabulary
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Restaurant Critic Pete Wells' Yummy Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The shadowed portion could also develop a rusty or copper colored tint.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026
A nearby playground has rusty and broken equipment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
It’s the infrastructure around it: childcare, time, money, bodily recovery and a place where being rusty is allowed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
And the former world number eight looked rusty as he broke Zheng, ranked 144th, just once in the entire match.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
He pushed aside an array of mesquite branches to reveal the furniture: remnants of a filthy old mattress, two metal stools, and an ancient, rusty pot-bellied stove.
From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall
“Every endorsement we make is earned, not given,” California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026
Rusty, it seems, is also a therapy horse for other horses.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
He looks a lot like Rusty, but is much smaller.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
Rusty is a three-year-old Falabella – one of the world's smallest horse breeds – and he now has his own taxi to get around London.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
They stayed at the edge of the Rusty Ruins.
From "Uglies" by Scott Westerfeld
The tall flowers shot up out of spiky, gray-green leaves and were brilliant against darker, rustier tones in the yards.
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2023
A metal handle can be more lightweight and sturdy, but it may also be colder and rustier.
From New York Times ● Feb. 16, 2023
BEREA, Ohio — Deshaun Watson felt the crowd’s anger while juggling his own nerves and emotions in a return that was rustier than expected last week.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 8, 2022
My own feed—I lived in San Francisco before moving to Cleveland—had the vapors, offering up rustier alternatives—just move to the Midwest!—as morally and fiscally superior and doubling down on the fetishization of cheap real estate.
From Slate ● Mar. 7, 2018
Just an old hammer and a few rusted tin cans holding some even rustier nails.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
She’s a photographer named Alyssha Eve Csuk, and she grew up in the Rust Belt, beside the rustiest spot in America.
From Slate ● Mar. 10, 2015
And thus, perhaps the rustiest of the Rust Belt cities has a reason to go wild, writes Yahoo.com’s Les Carpenter.
From New York Times ● Sep. 26, 2011
With few exceptions, the critical essays that make up most of The Vonnegut Statement are founded on the rustiest claptrap in literary exegesis.
From Time Magazine Archive
She sorted through them carefully, and selected the oldest, biggest, blackest, rustiest key.They went into the drawing room.
From "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman
Keys did I carry, the rustiest of all keys; and I knew how to open with them the most creaking of all gates.
From Thus Spake Zarathustra A book for all and none by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
