Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A direction for the road or course, especially for a course by sea.
  • noun A trooper; a dragoon; specifically, a mercenary horse-soldier in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
  • noun A dashing gallant; a man of fashion.
  • noun One that ruts.
  • noun A form of plow for cutting ruts in a logging-road for the runners of the sleds to run in.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A horseman or trooper.
  • noun That which ruts.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A thing that ruts.
  • noun A tool used in peat cutting.
  • noun A guide who leads the way through a difficult or unknown course.
  • noun A pilot book or seaman's guide carried by navigators in the Middle Ages; a precursor to the modern navigation chart.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Likely from French routier and Dutch ruiter, meaning "something that finds a way".

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