Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Inclined to a healthy rosiness; ruddy.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Inclining to redness; ruddy; blood-red: said especially of the face; in botany, turning rosy-red.
- Synonyms Rosy, etc. See ruddy.
Wiktionary
- adj. Ruddy.
- adj. Possessing a red complexion.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Inclining to redness; ruddy; red.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. inclined to a healthy reddish color often associated with outdoor life
Etymologies
- Latin rubicundus, from rubere 'be red'. (Wiktionary)
- Latin rubicundus; see reudh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The expression of his countenance would have been bluff but for a certain sinister glance, and his complexion might have been called rubicund but for a considerable tinge of bilious yellow.”
“Reverend Jenkins was tall, rubicund, big-boned yet fragile-looking, with a full shock of longish white hair topping the bill.”
“It sees the countryside as a large playground-museum, filled with red-faced Poujadiste farmers, cruel fox-hunting squires and rubicund peasants, over which its supporters are encouraged to roam at will.”
“Theobald Tanqueray Thompkinson, leaning unsteadily forwards, jocular and rotund; rubicund, reckless and implausibly optimistic.”
“Herries then turned to the Justice, whose visage, wholly abandoned by the rubicund hue which so lately beamed upon it, hung out the same pale livery as that of his dismayed clerk.”
“Evaporates rubicund pools with warm winds of love.”
““At your service,” replied the farmer, looking in and showing a face like that of Louis XVIII., with fat, rubicund cheeks, from between which issued a nose that in any other face would have seemed enormous.”
“This was the time for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a black bottle with a porcelain – topped cork, representing some clerical dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect.”
“His face, however, had expanded under the influence of good living, and a disposition remarkable for resignation; and its bold, fleshy curves had so far extended beyond the limits originally assigned them, that unless you took a full view of his countenance in front, it was difficult to distinguish more than the extreme tip of a very rubicund nose.”
“He was a tall man of middle age, with two goggle eyes whereof one was a fixture, a rubicund nose, a cadaverous face, and a suit of clothes (if the term be allowable when they suited him not at all) much the worse for wear, very much too small, and placed upon such a short allowance of buttons that it was marvellous how he contrived to keep them on.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘rubicund’.
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Jesse's random
bathos, dragoman, tessellated, escutcheon, eikon, mondaine, basilisk, ciborium, rubric, machicolation, jet, defalcation and 198 more...
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Not 250 Spelling Words Again
Yet more spelling words for intermediate to advanced spellers.
ihi, kyoodle, heimin, feis, menarche, cordwainer, gherao, zythum, accidie, anastomosis, boustrophedon, oleum and 238 more...
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color (red)
tiara's color lists rebuilt :)
( visual, colors, red, descriptive, randomness )red, Red, Pink, Cloud, Salmon, Rose, Coral(Pink/Red/Dark), Cramoisy/Modena/C..., Raspberry, Rubious/Ruby, Tomato, Sanguineous/Blood and 483 more...
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phrontistery-r
from phrontistery.info
raad, rabanna, rabbet, rabble, Rabelaisian, rabic, racemation, raceme, racemiferous, rach, rachidian, rachiometer and 514 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 503 more...
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colors!
xanthous, rubicund, arsigont, aubergine, caerulean, cerise, parti-colored, bay, verdant, empurple, vermilion, paris green and 1 more...
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esotericisms
words that make me warm inside
kinemacolour, sardonic, entente, saturnine, ens, ensanguine, causa sui, entelechy, epicheirema, ex post facto, peccadillo, illation and 27 more...
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Uncommon and Interesting words
That come in handy, but might make you look like a douchebag.
prurient, lithe, superannuated, wanderlust, sanguine, florid, slugabed, candor, eldritch, superbowl syndrome, indolent, perforce and 37 more...
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Words That Mean Things
I found most of these words in books! That means they MUST be good.
flinders, periplus, palaver, midden, cadge, legerdemain, flense, lapidary, geas, bailey, susurration, satoris and 128 more...
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Colors
Words for colors, including things so associated with a color that they can be used in reference to a color.
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, purple, navy, lavender, turquoise, chartreuse and 218 more...
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Good for Academics
Gahh!! Study!
supplant, usurp, finagle, winnow, draconian, abut, collude, swindle, objectify, incite, decadent, obstinate and 327 more...
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via Weird and Wonderful Words
Catch-all for things culled from Weird and Wonderful Words, More Weird and Wonderful Words, and Totally Weird and Wonderful Words, by Erin McKean, et al.
aboulia, alexiteric, angletouch, dactylion, alveary, sparlire, glabella, philtrum, pallium, heart-spoon, hyperprosexia, paraprosexia and 438 more...
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ADW2
nudnik, temper, intercalate, cleave, scowl, chapfallen, malapropos, disport, annals, paean, paradisiacal, whet and 362 more...
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Madame Bovary
Some good words (chiefly French of origin, and often to do with the medical profession) encountered reading the Aveling translation -- mostly new to me, but a few words that are just worthy of bein...
tulle, argand, friable, corolla, lives of stir, difficile, rime, inveigh, feuilleton, peristyle, refulgence, wainscoting and 98 more...
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annscann's list
My words, generally
bavarois, bawbee, bawd, bawdry, libertine, russophobe, rubicund, gossamer, persnickety, claptrap, gesticulate, schadenfreudian and 199 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for rubicund.

yarb Last sun ripes each one, though rubicund, black
then each rots.
- Peter Reading, Raspberrying, from For the Municipality's Elderly, 1974 Jun 22, 2008
brtom My face on niacin. Jan 4, 2008