1575 G. Gascoigne Noble Arte Venerie xlvii. 147 Then you may hunte them [sc. goats] vntill theyr Rutting time come.

1607 E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 129 At the time of their lust or rutting, they are aboue measure fierce.

1773 Ann. Reg. 1772 ii. 100 Several people..make use of them for hunting wild deer, or for decoying them home, especially in the time of their rutting.

1847–9 Todd's Cycl. Anat. & Physiol. IV. i. 473/2 The period of rutting among most animals..is associated with the commencement of the warmer season.

1878 G. Fleming Text-bk. Vet. Obstetr. 55 The rutting, heat, œstrum, or venereal œstrum of animals is analogous to ‘menstruation’ in woman.

1990 Nat. Hist. June 62/2 Group size and membership change frequently, guided by the seasonal rhythm of rutting, calving, and the merging of territories.

2008 Independent 7 Feb. (Extra section) 11/3 Rutting is in September and October and calving begins in mid-May.

1600 W. Vaughan Golden-groue i. xxxi. sig. G5^v But to make both, aswell the intemperate man, as the incontinent hatefull vnto vs: Let vs call to minde, howe they do nothing else, but thinke on their present prouender and rutting.

1609 W. Shakespeare Pericles xix. 9 Ile doe any thing now that is vertuous, but I am out of the road of rutting for euer. View more context for this quotation

1681 Heraclitus Ridens 11 Oct. 2/2 Have you heard how the Whigs go a Rutting in the Countrey, as well as a Bulling in the City?

1851 J. R. Morell tr. C. Fourier Passions Human Soul I. 35 Two distinct pleasures..can be separated; they are copulation and kissing... They are moreover subject to a spiritual ambiguity..which unites two actions, two affections, the material or rutting, and the animic or celadony.

1928 W. Lewis Tarr (ed. 2) ii. ix. 115 He must tread her woman-body in a masterful rutting debauch, and of course subsequently spurn it.

1941 W. A. Percy Lanterns on Levee xii. 125 Gambling bored me, rutting per se, unadorned, I considered overrated and degrading.

2007 T. Chevalier Burning Bright (2008) 46 Dick Butterfield seemed unimpressed. ‘What, rutting is all? That's nothing you don't see every day you look down an alley.’

1834 E. Jesse Gleanings Nat. Hist. 2nd Ser. 25 During a particular season the male mole makes what mole catchers call the rutting-angles. These are much larger than the usual runs.

1870 Trans. Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club 1869 131 They are termed by the French naturalists traces d'amour, and by our English mole-catchers ‘coupling runs’ or ‘rutting angles’.

1806 S. W. Johnson Rural Econ. v. ii. 208 Every precaution ought to be taken to prevent the rutting of roads.

1894 R. Stone New Roads & Road Laws U.S. xviii. 105 It was claimed..that the rutting was due to insufficient rolling of the lower courses of stone.

1919 E. A. Bonney & W. G. Harger Handbk. Highway Engineers (ed. 3) vii. 204 These shoulders should be improved..by graveling or covering with broken stone to avoid excessive rutting.

1976 P. R. White Planning for Public Transport iii. 66 Since the road surface in the lane is used only by buses, rutting may develop along paths followed by the wheels.

2007 Virginian-Pilot (Nexis) 30 Dec. b3 Workers filled potholes, fixed areas of rutting and made the unpaved street level.

1577 R. Stanyhurst Treat. Descr. Irelande iii. f. 14/1, in R. Holinshed Chron. I Rutting wyues make often rammishe husbandes, as our prouerbe doeth inferre.

1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis iv. 70 Thee winter season too wast in leacherye wanton. Retchles of her kingdoom, with rutting bitcherye sauted [L. turpique cupidine captos].

a1640 P. Massinger Parl. of Love (1976) iv. v. 74 Fie, you shame yourself And the profession of your ruttinge gallants.

1874 J. M. Scudder Reprod. Organs & Venereal 111 Perpetual gratification of the lust of a rutting man is unphysiological.

1960 J. W. Bellah Sergeant Rutledge ii.5 So he lances the boil when he can and lives snarled in the spleen of rutting youth, sullen in completeness.

1996 C. Vanderhaeghe Englishman's Boy xxix. 305 He'd heard the rutting men with the whores, groaning as they pushed the need of their bodies into another body.

2010 B. Udall Lonely Polygamist vii. 98 The succession of groping teenage boys and rutting men.

1690 T. D'Urfey New Poems 146 Like Rutting Deer, with Antlets large, Or Rams they vigorously charge.

1766 J. Entick New Spelling Dict. (ed. 2) Troat, to cry like rutting bucks.

1891 Athenæum 7 Feb. 186/3 A man pursued by a rutting elephant.

1896 N. Munro Lost Pibroch 15 The rutting deers bellowed with loud throats.

1916 Amer. Jrnl. Urol. & Sexol. 12 461 She even fights the rutting male in an attempt to escape from him.

2001 C. Glazebrook Madolescents 160 She's making a proper racket of it, roaring like a rutting stag I saw in a nature programme.