russet
/ˈrʌsɪt
/adjective
1Reddish brown in colour: the russet bracken...
- The hot summer is set to produce a stunning autumn with falling leaves of red, russet browns and gold, according to a conservation group.
- Gone were the chilly winds, rich gold and russet colours and fresh sunshine of late summers, chased away by grey skies and a thin layer of crackling white frost glazing solemn pavements.
- It matures early in October with an attractive russet colour.
2 archaic Rustic; homely: that terse and epigrammatic style, with its russet Saxon
noun
1 [mass noun] A reddish-brown colour: the woods in autumn are a riot of russet and gold...
- It comes in a range of colours from russet to beige, and prices start at £895.
- As the days grow shorter and cooler, plants take on new personas, ripening into warm gold, russet, and sepia tones.
- The tough rind, pale russet in colour, is very bitter, as is the covering of the three seeds.
2A dessert apple of a variety with a slightly rough brownish skin.Grandfather sold the russets and the codlings and the pippins from his orchard, and those he didn't sell he stored in his pristine white-washed cellar, where huge black hams and sides of bacon were hanging from black hooks.
3 [mass noun] historical A coarse homespun reddish-brown or grey cloth used for simple clothing.They see a plain country-fellow well and cleanly apparelled, either in a coat of homespun russet, or of frieze.
Derivatives
russety
- It still feels like the baker's inner sanctum, low ceilinged but spacious, the longest wall dominated by Victorian ovens, the others lined with russety wood or painted an appropriate baked earth hue.
- Not one, not two, but 2,300 varieties of Britain's favourite fruit grow here, all deliciously arranged across acres of russety Kentish downland.
- The best of the entrées I tried here was thin fillets of skate wing, fried until they were beautifully crisp and russety brown.
Origin
Middle English: from an Anglo-Norman French variant of Old French rousset, diminutive of rous 'red', from Provençal ros, from Latin russus 'red'.
Russet comes via Anglo-Norman French from Latin russus ‘red’. It was originally a name for a coarse homespun woollen cloth that was reddish-brown, grey, or neutral in colour, used formerly for making clothing for land workers. When is came to be used for a colour in the 15th century it was usually applied to cloth. The type of apple, named from its colour appears in the early 18th century. Rust (Old English) is more closely related to the Old English word for ‘red’ although they both go back to the same Indo-European root.