Rough Meaning
/ɹʌf/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjNot smooth; uneven.
adjApproximate; hasty or careless; not finished.
Sentence Examples
The sea got rough, so that we had to give up fishing.
We had a rough crossing on an old ferry.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The surface of the sandpaper was very ____, so it quickly wore down the wood.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The sea was too ____ for small boats, so the harbor master closed the port.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English rough, roughe, roȝe, row, rou, ru, ruȝ, ruh, from Old English rūg, rūh, from Proto-Germanic *rūhaz. Cognate with Scots ruch, rouch (“rough”), Saterland Frisian ruuch, rouch (“rough”), West Frisian rûch (“rough”), Low German ruuch (“rough”), Dutch ruig (“rough”), German rau(h) (“rough”), Danish ru (“uneven on the surface, "rough", "rugged"”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black, rocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive. Rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a small boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather heroic, before he gets to the top."
— 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
"With my mother's permission and blessings, I set off exultantly for Bombay, leaving my wife with a baby of a few months. But on arrival there, friends told my brother that the Indian Ocean was rough in June and July, and as this was my first voyage, I should not be allowed to sail until November."
— 1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, chapter XII, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the Original in Gujarati, volume I, Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Press, →OCLC:
""You find us a bit rough," apologized the young man, with something of contempt towards his surroundings. "We weren't expecting visitors.""
— 1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados:
"But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song, / And smooth or rough, with them"
— 1711 May, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W[illiam] Lewis […]; and sold by W[illiam] Taylor […], T[homas] Osborn[e] […], and J[ohn] Graves […], →OCLC:
"In Wellington Street my brother met a couple of sturdy roughs, who had just rushed out of Fleet Street with still wet newspapers and staring placards. "Dreadful catastrophe!" they bawled one to the other down Wellington Street. "Fighting at Weybridge!""
— 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 124:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The surface of the sandpaper was very ____, so it quickly wore down the wood.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The sea was too ____ for small boats, so the harbor master closed the port.