rouge

¹ American  

[roozh] / ruʒ /

noun

• rouges
  plural

1. any of various red cosmetics for coloring the cheeks or lips.

2. a reddish powder, chiefly ferric oxide, used for polishing metal, glass, etc.

3. Canadian football.

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verb (used with object)

• rouges,
  present (3rd person singular)
• rouged,
  past participle,  past
• rouging
  present participle

1. to color with rouge.

verb (used without object)

• rouges,
  present (3rd person singular)
• rouged,
  past participle,  past
• rouging
  present participle

1. to use rouge.

rouge ² American  

[roozh] / ruʒ /

adjective

French.

1. red; noting the red numbers in roulette.

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rouge British  

/ ruːʒ /

noun

1. a red powder, used as a cosmetic for adding redness to the cheeks

2. short for jeweller's rouge

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verb

1. to apply rouge to

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• unrouged
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• rouges
  plural

Participles

• rouging
  present
• rouged
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• rouge
  simple
• rouges
  simple
• have rouged
  perfect
• has rouged
  perfect
• am rouging
  progressive
• are rouging
  progressive
• is rouging
  progressive
• have been rouging
  perfect progressive
• has been rouging
  perfect progressive

Past

• rouged
  simple
• had rouged
  perfect
• was rouging
  progressive
• were rouging
  progressive
• had been rouging
  perfect progressive

Future

• will rouge
  simple
• will have rouged
  perfect
• will be rouging
  progressive
• will have been rouging
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of rouge

1475–85; < French: red < Latin rubeus; akin to red ¹

Explanation

When your grandma says she's "putting her face on" in the morning, what she means is that she's swiping lipstick on her mouth and dabbing plenty of rouge on her cheeks. Rouge is any kind of red or reddish-colored makeup that's used for tinting a person's cheeks. The word rouge can also refer to the red color itself, or it can be a verb, which you'd use to say, "Grandma, you're uneven — you forgot to rouge your left cheek." The root of rouge is the Latin word rubeus, which itself means "red". A common mistake is to confuse the words rouge and rogue, which means a scoundrel.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rouge rouges rouged rouging

I scooped up a pét-nat rouge, a rosé and a red blend on my way out of town at Yakima’s Apple Valley Emporium, a combination skateboard and bottle shop.

From Seattle Times ● May 18, 2024

Joel Embiid will wear red, white and blue in Paris next summer - not rouge, blanc and bleu.

From Washington Times ● Oct. 5, 2023

Maples blaze rouge whilst bigtooth aspens and mountain-ash trees sprinkle yellow.

From Salon ● Jun. 18, 2023

Previous coronations have had historic roles such as the "rouge dragon pursuivant", "unicorn pursuivant" and carriers of the "golden spur" and the "white wand".

From BBC ● Jan. 21, 2023

Winston had a glimpse of her face, upside down, yellow and contorted, with the eyes shut, and still with a smear of rouge on either cheek; and that was the last he saw of her.

From "1984" by George Orwell

They gather flowers and spread them at the door; Butterfly rouges her cheeks and puts on the wedding garments she wore the night she and the lieutenant fell in love.

From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2024

In something of an operatic mad scene, he visits a barber who dyes his hair, powders him with ghost-white makeup and rouges his cheeks.

From New York Times ● Oct. 13, 2021

France witnessed the emergence of "les bonnets rouges" - a protest movement with its roots in Brittany, with its symbol of red hats taken from an earlier tax revolt.

From BBC ● Dec. 27, 2013

The man who married Trotsky's secretary made his most interesting and rebellious characters girls: the piratical sisters, the Amazons, who "rattle our sabres to frighten the neighbours", ululate ferociously beneath their bonnets rouges.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 19, 2010

The moon—she rouges, steals the sun's bright light, By eating stolen bread her living gets,— Is also wont to paint her cheeks at night, While, with untiring ardor, she coquets.

From The Poems of Schiller — Suppressed poems by Friedrich Schiller

Don’t let the rouged cheeks and Shirley Temple curls fool you.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2025

In performance and in paintings, Monkman, 57, morphs into Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, strapping and strong-jawed, lipsticked and rouged, striding on stilettos through epic landscapes that allude to works by 19th-century Romantics.

From New York Times ● Feb. 17, 2022

I remember him telling my brothers and me, after his father died, that he hadn’t been able to look into the open casket, because the morticians had rouged his father’s cheeks.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 17, 2017

Ronald Reagan, with his strange, molded, too-dark hair and rouged cheeks and permanent smile, was everything horrifying about the phrase “All-American”.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 8, 2016

Now her rouged cheeks and her reddened lips made her seem alive and sleeping very lightly.

From "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck

Baroness Steinheil's first request was for a mirror, in front of which she immediately set about powdering & rouging.

From Time Magazine Archive

They were fond of rouging their faces, especially the lips, and the eye was a feature to which much time and art were given.

From Oriental Women by Edward Bagby Pollard

The new numbers appear to me admirable, and full of life and blood—whatever we may say to the thick rouging and extravagance of gesture.

From The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) by Sir Frederic G. (Frederic George) Kenyon

The ladies were busy chattering and rouging their lips when the bill was presented.

From Castles in the Air by Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

The leading lady assumed an air of injured innocence, and left off rouging her cheeks to heighten the effect.

From My Actor-Husband A true story of American stage life by Anonymous