in a rut
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Stuck in a routine or situation and unable to change
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Bị kẹt trong một thói quen hoặc tình huống và không thể thay đổi
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: in a groove or ditch
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ Most of them seem to live quite happily in a rut, and put a settled home life and material possessions first.
AS POST - DINOSAUR Jr popthrash becomes increasingly stuck in a rut of adolescent whining and indolence, it comes as a refreshing change to find a band who actually appear angry rather than mildly upset with their lot.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “in a rut” mean?
Stuck in a routine or situation and unable to change Literally: in a groove or ditch
Is “in a rut” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.