Jump To:

• rusty
  rusty

  adjective

  covered with or affected by rust.
• Rusty
  Rusty

  noun

  a male or female given name.

rusty

¹ American  

[ruhs-tee] / ˈrʌs ti /

adjective

rustier, comparative rustiest superlative

1. covered with or affected by rust.

2. consisting of or produced by rust.

3. of or tending toward the color rust; rust-colored.

4. faded or shabby; impaired by time or wear, as clothes or drapery.

5. impaired through disuse or neglect.

   My Latin is rusty.

6. having lost agility or alertness; out of practice.

   I am a bit rusty at tennis.

7. (of a sound) grating or harsh.

---

rusty ² American  

[ruhs-tee] / ˈrʌs ti /

adjective

rustier, comparative rustiest superlative

1. restive; stubborn.

   a rusty horse.

2. Chiefly Dialect. ill-tempered; cross.

---

Rusty ³ American  

[ruhs-tee] / ˈrʌs ti /

noun

1. a male or female given name.

---

rusty British  

/ ˈrʌstɪ /

adjective

1. covered with, affected by, or consisting of rust

   a rusty machine

   a rusty deposit

2. of the colour rust

3. discoloured by age

   a rusty coat

4. (of the voice) tending to croak

5. old-fashioned in appearance; seemingly antiquated

   a rusty old gentleman

6. out of practice; impaired in skill or knowledge by inaction or neglect

7. (of plants) affected by the rust fungus

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• rustiness
  noun
• rustily
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Adjectives

• rustier
  comparative
• rustiest
  superlative

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rusty Rusty rustier rustiest

However, after a rusty start, her level gradually started to improve and she battled resiliently to stick with Joint, twice recovering from a break down in the second set to force a tie-break.

From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2026

Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree brings the rusty, old tow truck character from the “Cars” movie to life in Cars Land at Disney California Adventure.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026

A hedgehog that spent at least four days stuck in a rusty underground drain pipe in Fife has been rescued with the help of some cooking oil and a large pair of pliers.

From BBC ● Apr. 29, 2026

Asked about which dinosaurs he’d hope to see in the movie, Choudhury lists off several that I have to look up, rusty from my years away from textbooks.

From Salon ● Apr. 12, 2026

The only thing in it was a small table that held a rusty two-burner gas cooker plate with a small gas cylinder attached.

From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo

When I walk Rusty, he's good for the soul.

From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026

He has been studying equine therapy and helping train Rusty.

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

Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said “every campaign is entitled to run the race that they believe matches their story,” even if that means questioning the party’s past performance.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2026

“Tally, did you and Shay ever go to 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

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

“It’s like the more off days you have, the rustier you get,” he said.

From Washington Times ● Apr. 3, 2015

My Joust skills were a lot rustier than I thought.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

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 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm