- rude
- rude 1 Rude, rough, crude, raw, callow, green, uncouth mean deficient in the qualities that make for finish or for perfection in development or in use.Rude, as applied to men and their minds, suggests a comparatively low state of culture or a dearth of learning more often than savagery or barbarism, although it may suggest the latter{
like a rude and savage man of Ind— Shak
}{a rude, domineering, arrogant type of man, without cultivation or culture— Shirer
}As applied to the things which men make or do, rude suggests the makers' ignorance of technique or of proper materials, their inexpertness or inexperience or a deficiency of materials{rude attempts at verse
}{rude implements
}{rude workmanship
}{a rude hut
}{our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold; and the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart— Kipling
}Rough (see also ROUGH 1) usually suggests more harshness or violence than rude and a more culpable ignorance or inexperience. As applied to men and their manners, the term usually implies the absence of signs not only of polish and refinement but of gentleness, politeness, and often even civility. It does not, however, necessarily imply boldness, insolence, boorishness, or other unpleasant qualities{a plain, rough, honest man, and wise, tho' not learned— Addison
}{Phil was rough and frank . . . she had brought herself up in a hard school— Sackville-West
}{use rough lan- guage
}As applied to men's works and products, rough suggests less lack of expertness or deficiency of materials than offhandedness, haste, or indifference to technique; it is typically applied to things which are not carefully made because they suffice for the purpose or are not yet finished, being in an early stage of a process or develop-ment{make a first rough draft of a speech
}{a rough guess
}{the style of the work lost its polish, became rough— Mailer
}Crude may be applied to men and their acts, words, or products, but it gets its fundamental implications from its historically earlier application to things which have not been touched by man (as in processing, refining, or treating) and are as yet in their natural state or in an undeveloped state{crude petroleum
}{crude rubber
}Consequently when applied to men or their acts, words, or products, crude implies the far remove of what is so described from what is perfected, highly developed, or fully civilized{crude colors
}{crude methods
}{a crude philosophy
}{the guests . . . made a decorous beeline for the champagne. There was whisky and gin, too, ... for cruder palates— Styron
}Raw, which in the earliest of its present senses describes the condition of uncooked food, is often further applied to natural products which are gathered, mined, or otherwise removed from their native places but are not yet processed or are in the earliest stage of manufacture or processing; thus, raw silk names the fiber from the cocoons of the silkworm as it is drawn from them and reeled; raw hides are stripped from the carcasses of animals but are not yet tanned or dressed; raw milk is as yet unpasteurized; the raw materials from which the miller produces flour are various cereal grains{the raw material of music is sound— Day Lewis
}As applied to men, their minds, or their product, raw, more than crude, suggests the elementariness of the untried and the inexperienced{raw recruits
}{compared with her, he felt vague and raw, incapable of coming to terms with life— Sackville-West
}{over and over again he had seen her take some raw youth, twist him, turn him, wake him up; set him going— Woolf
}Callow is nearly always applied to youths or to those who retain the signs of imma-turity in manhood; it usually suggests naiveté, simplicity, lack of sophistication, but not so strikingly as does crude, and its suggestions of inexperience or present unfitness are not so strong as those of raw{souls and wits which have never got beyond the callow and boarding-school stage— Arnold
}{an embarrassingly callow master of ceremonies—New Yorker
}{in its callow days, modern science used to amuse itself by frightening the rest of us with its bogies— Gauss
}Green derives most of its connotations from green as applied to fruit and implying unripeness and unfitness for use. The term often comes close to raw when applied to persons and their abilities because it suggests inexperience and lack of necessary training{employ green hands in a factory
}Often, however, it additionally connotes simplicity or gullibility{he had not . . . allowed his young green jealousy to show it-self in words or pique— Buck
}{wasn't so green as to expect suspicious characters to look suspicious— Chesterton
}But green is also used of products or sometimes of the raw materials of manufacture or processing which are not yet fully seasoned or cured{green liquors
}{green pelts
}Uncouth retains from other senses a strong implication of strangeness{outlandish meant in the beginning only what doesn't belong to our own land, and uncouth was simply "unknown"— Lowes
}and is appro-priately applied to what seems strange in comparison to what is felt as normal or finished or excellent, whether because crude and clumsy especially in appearance{though living in as refined a home as could be found in that part of the world, Breckinridge found conditions rough and uncouth— Coulter
}{armored catfish . . . — uncouth creatures, with outrageously long feelers and tentacles, misplaced fins, and mostly ensconced in bony armor— Beebe
}or because lacking in polish and grace{the inherent courtesy and tenderness of the untutored and uncouth human being— Harrison Smith
}{artists who were rude and uncouth, yet possessed a high degree of technical skill and strong powers of imagination— Eliot
}or because deficient in cultivation and refinement{people who are, though kind, still uncouth or inconsiderate; . . . uncouthness and inconsiderateness, are, however tolerable, nowhere agreeable qualities in a positive sense—Browne 11
}{they were unaccustomed, painfully uncouth in the simplest social intercourse, suffering, and yet insolent in their superiority— D. H. Lawrence
}Analogous words: boorish, churlish, clownish, loutish (see under BOOR): rustic, *rural, bucolic: barbarous, savage, *barbarian: primitive, *primary, primeval2 Rude, ill-mannered, impolite, discourteous, uncivil, ungracious can all mean not observant of the manners or forms required by good breeding.Rude suggests lack of delicacy or consideration for the feelings of others; it does not necessarily suggest lack of breeding, for it is applicable to persons of all stations or conditions. It usually stresses impudence, insolence, or a generally insulting manner{a rude answer
}{demanding an explanation of the rude familiarity with which Jim had treated him— Anderson
}Ill-mannered is a more general and less explicit term, and it seldom carries a suggestion of an intent to offend or insult such as rude usually carries; it is therefore applicable to a person, act, or utterance that shows ignorance of, indifference to, or a disregard of the proprieties{the tone . . . seems to me as gratuitously ill-mannered as the sentence itself is foolish— Corke
}Impolite, discourteous, and uncivil, as the negatives of polite, courteous, civil (for all three, see CIVIL), imply merely the reverse of the care in observing the proprieties of good or formal society that is suggested by polite{scientists may form schools of thought, but these can never become cults because there is always some impolite maverick pointing to some new unassimilated fact— La Barre
}or of the considerate, dignified politeness that is suggested by courteous, thereby implying something like rudeness{the clergyman was much humiliated by the discourteous reply to his appeal
}or of the modicum of good manners that is suggested by civil, thereby implying an utter disregard of the decent consideration expected in social intercourse among civilized persons{no profanity, Señor. We want nothing from you but to get away from your uncivil tongue— Cather
}Ungracious (compare GRACIOUS) stresses the lack of kindliness or courtesy resulting from awkwardness, callowness, surliness, or irritation{an ungracious refusal
}{an ungracious answer
}{these criticisms of a book that is a labor of love and piety may seem ungracious— Cohen
}Analogous words: brusque, curt, gruff, crusty (see BLUFF): *impertinent, intrusive, meddlesome: surly, crabbed (see SULLEN)Antonyms: civil: urbane
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
