rusticate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to go to the country.
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to stay or sojourn in the country.
verb (used with object)
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to send to or domicile in the country.
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to make rustic, as persons or manners.
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to finish (a wall surface) so as to produce or suggest rustication.
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British. to suspend (a student) from a university as punishment.
verb
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to banish or retire to the country
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to make or become rustic in style, behaviour, etc
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(tr) architect to finish (an exterior wall) with large blocks of masonry that are separated by deep joints and decorated with a bold, usually textured, design
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(tr) to send down from university for a specified time as a punishment
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rusticate
1650–60; < Latin rūsticātus (past participle of rūsticārī to live in the country), equivalent to rūstic ( us ) rustic + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
If you want to move to the countryside — especially if you desire a simple, unsophisticated life there — you may explain to people that you wish to rusticate your busy life. The verb rusticate means "to send to the countryside." If you live in the city, you may want to rusticate your kids in the summers so they can experience a different lifestyle. In Britain, another meaning of the verb is to suspend from university, as in to be punished. If you get caught breaking too many rules with your practical jokes, the dean may rusticate you for a term or two.
Vocabulary lists containing rusticate
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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:
Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, who thought the Review's firm stand might encourage the Republican Party to rusticate Welch and all other extremists of his breed.
From Time Magazine Archive
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When Mitchell was court-martialed in 1925 for his obstreperous advocacy of air power, his friend & follower Hap Arnold was sent off to rusticate at Fort Riley.
From Time Magazine Archive
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He plans to rusticate in Mexico, not talk any English for 90 days.
From Time Magazine Archive
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In other words, as far as the Soviet-dominated government in Prague is concerned, Dub?ek's main job in Ankara is to rusticate.
From Time Magazine Archive
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In the Greek legend, Apollo lodges with the shepherds of Admetus; and Jove liked to rusticate among the poor Ethiopians.
From McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader by McGuffey, William Holmes
Two students were rusticated, or dismissed, by their colleges for climbing King's College Chapel in June 1937.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2019
As you climb the subway steps to Central Park West, looming overhead is the faceted red-granite American Museum of Natural History, whose rusticated walls and 150-foot-tall towers look like a Brobdingnagian brownstone.
From New York Times ● Oct. 30, 2017
One of the largest developers in Monaco, Marzocco has turned its hand to everything from pink palazzos encrusted with wedding-cake mouldings to rusticated stone castles.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 30, 2014
When Ratna gets out next year, Durgesh wants her rusticated to the family’s ancestral village, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2013
I guess this was the rusticated equivalent of coming out.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
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On this Maine island, vacation is for rusticating.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 16, 2021
A quiet, brooding sense of menace settles in right at the beginning, which finds Mr. Clooney, his silver hair complemented by a snowy beard, rusticating in the snowy Swedish countryside.
From New York Times ● Aug. 31, 2010
In 1940, Prince Abdul Illah quashed one would-be Army coup by seizing the Iraqi telephone service and rusticating two uppity generals.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Dona meets him while she is rusticating, away from it all, on her husband's Cornish estate.
From Time Magazine Archive
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But for the iron bars and the treble locks which had to be opened every time we had occasion to leave our rooms, we might have fancied we were rusticating for our pleasure.
From Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. by Hell, Xavier Hommaire de
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.