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:
In summer, the Niebuhrs rusticate at Heath, Mass., near the Vermont line.
From Time Magazine Archive
Franco, who has yet to commit himself unequivocally to restoration of the monarchy, sought to rusticate the prince and his prospective bride outside Madrid.
From Time Magazine Archive
Johnny Case solves his problem neatly by leaving his fiancee, Julia, to rusticate in the Seton mansion, eloping with her older sister, Linda, who shares his disdain for her family bankroll.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
"You don't think he'll rusticate us, or anything of that sort?" said Tom, who had felt horrible twinges at the Captain's picture of the effects of rustication on ordinary mortals.
From Tom Brown at Oxford by Hughes, Thomas
Two students were rusticated, or dismissed, by their colleges for climbing King's College Chapel in June 1937.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2019
Columns were piled on pilasters, rusticated plinths groaned under heaving cornices and every junction was elaborated with a twiddly moulding.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 12, 2017
Designed by Robert W. Gibson, it was built of modest rusticated limestone block and red tile, topped by a 160-foot copper belfry that still tolls every half-hour.
From New York Times ● Jun. 23, 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
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
Old Jack Paar, supposedly rusticating there, is host-narrator.
From Time Magazine Archive
Dona meets him while she is rusticating, away from it all, on her husband's Cornish estate.
From Time Magazine Archive
Laura— may I say it?—while rusticating in Arden you haven't forgotten certain talents you used to possess.
From Nightfall by Pryde, Anthony
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.
