ruse

noun

1. (archaic, countable, often, rare)A turning or doubling back, especially of animals to get out of the way of hunting dogs.

   “The boar was evidently most averse to leave the field in which he had spent so may pleasant hours of uninterrupted rest; […] He turned sharply to one flank; he stopped dead, and went away in the opposite direction as he heard the hunters gallop past; every ruse he tried, but tried in vain.”

2. (broadly, countable)An action intended to deceive; a trick.

   “Near-synonyms: ploy, stratagem”

   “It must be borne in mind that huntsmen sometimes make casts which they know must lose them their fox: […] At the same time, it would be bad policy to explain these little matters: some parties, who are not sufficiently acquainted with the management of hounds, might be discontented, whereas by such a ruse no offence is given, as nine-tenths of the Field are not aware that it is not the most likely cast to recover the scent.”

   “He was soon upon his feet, another assegai whistled through the air, and pierced through the neck of the lioness. But, as before, the wound was not fatal, and the animal, now enraged to a frenzy, charged once more upon her assailant. So rapid was her advance that it was with great difficulty Congo got under cover. A moment later, and his ruse would have failed, for the claws of the lion rattled upon the shield as it descended.”

   “I have that strong impression on my mind that a person who is guilty of a ruse will hesitate at no falsehood. If it was a ruse, and if it was a deceit, you are to judge whether that elevates the persons in your mind who are parties to that trick.”

   “Soon, however, Courvoisier forced matters, when, despairing of ever catching the wily outlaw leader by fair means, he resorted to the ruse of carrying off Friar Tuck of Copmanhurst and holding him as a hostage.”

3. (uncountable)Cunning, guile, trickery.

   “[H]e [Bertrand du Guesclin] had great natural cunning, that half-savage quality, was full of ruse and trick in war, he was contemptuous towards the high noblesse, but gentle to the poor, and generous to his friends.”

   “A French privateer operating under an English commission raided Massacre Island at the mouth of Mobile Bay in 1710, robbing its warehouse of thousands of deerskins and other pelts, as well as of naval stores. They took the small place by ruse.”

verb

1. (intransitive)To deceive or trick using a ruse.

   “Anyway, no man can escape the woman he considers too much rused for him: tear her down or run away toward her if he can't meet her head-and-hind on.”

   “And, in a way, s/he is already told, and what s/he him/herself is telling will not undo the fact that somewhere else s/he is told, but it will "ruse" with this; it will offer a variant in the form and even in the story.”

   “Even at that, the most plausible way of understanding, "the text deconstructs itself" is surely that the text signals the itinerary of its desire to be "about something," and that this itinerary must ruse over the open-endedness of the field of meaning; at a certain point, it is possible to locate the moment when the rusing reveals itself as the structure of unresolvable self-cancellings.”

   “In all types, manners and forms, empire “bilderz” come forward rusing out their favorite lines and spew. A sale just means yer not bein' gouged as much, doesn't it?”

   “Moreover, since we have now reached an extreme point in the development of consciousness, and know our own selves through and through, no 'ultimate self-doubt' remains which would allow us to ruse with death – as when, in Pascal's wager, it is the doubt about the afterlife which determines the choice.”

2. (archaic, intransitive, rare)Of an animal: to turn or double back to elude hunters or their hunting dogs.

   “With these whelps [the hunting dogs] who know the way but are in danger of being baffled by the rusing stag, the hunter sends the reliable old harre (perseverance). He is indispensable, as he has often confronted the stag at bay.”

   “In the parallel hunt of Octovian, the hart has rused and momentarily escaped. With the death of White, the Knight's heart is wounded and his life is endangered but he escapes for a time as does the hart, though the hunter Death will ultimately be successful in both cases.”

   “Sometimes the stag would throw the hounds off the scent by a series of clever ruses—for example, by retracing a part of his path and leaping dramatically in one direction. […] Ultimately, the stag would tire, and its signals of exhaustion (short rusing runs, downwind flight, and the narrowing of the toe prints) would be evident to the trackers.”

name

1. A suburb of Sydney in the Campbelltown council area, New South Wales, Australia.
2. A city in northeastern Bulgaria.
3. A municipality of Ruse Province, Bulgaria.
4. A province in Bulgaria.
5. A surname.
6. A suburb in the City of Campbelltown, near Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, named after James Ruse.