Revised as of
2 Nov 2022
A carpet and a rug may both be laid upon a floor, but a carpet covers the entire floor — and may go up the stairs! It’s usually nailed down along the baseboards.
A rug, well, it does not cover the entire room up to the baseboards. Nor is it usually tacked down — although a rug used on a staircase is usually held down at the back of the tread with stair rods. A rug can also be hung on the wall or draped over a table. Okay, I suppose you could carpet a piano, but why? Think of how it would muffle the sound!
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Carpet | Rug |
|---|---|
Businessman Tying His Shoe on a Red Carpet by Marko Milivojevic is under the CC0 license, via Pixnio. |
Ahar Carpet is Aharli y a‘s own work and is under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — Despite its title, this rug appears to be too long for this room. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Noun; Verb, transitive
Plural for the noun: carpets Third person present verb: carpets |
Noun
Plural: rugs |
| Noun: A floor or stair covering made from thick woven fabric, commonly of wool or nylon, typically shaped to fit a particular room
Any of a number of airborne electronic devices for jamming radar
Verb, transitive:
[British, informal] Reprimand severely |
A floor covering of thick woven material or animal skin, typically not extending over the entire floor
|
| Examples: | |
| Noun: The house has wall-to-wall carpets throughout. The floor was covered with carpet. The fields were carpets of snowdrops and crocuses. Down on the field, the artificial-turf carpet shines in the spring sun. It was a carpet laid down by jamming devices. A carpet of “information jamming can be applied from air, sea, land, and space by manned and unmanned systems, and can target communication, radar, or other services” (Vardhan). Verb, transitive: The meadows are carpeted with flowers. The principal had called Bert on the carpet for his bullying |
I do love an oriental rug.
I had never seen so many priceless Persian rugs. Charles and Elaine were sitting on the rug in front of the fire. There’s a huge sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. There should be a rug in the trap. Did you see the rug on his head? I can’t believe he just pulled the rug out from under me!? |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: carpetbagging, carpetless, carpetlike, uncarpeted Noun: carpetbag, carpeting Verb: carpet-bomb, carpetbag, carpetbagged, carpetbagger, carpetbagging, recarpet |
Adjective: rugged, ruglike |
| History of the Word: | |
| Middle English, denoting a thick fabric used as a cover for a table or bed is from the Old French carpite or the medieval Latin carpita, from the obsolete Italian carpita meaning woolen counterpane, based on the Latin carpere meaning pluck, pull to pieces. | Mid-16th century denoting a type of coarse woolen cloth is probably of Scandinavian origin. Compare with the Norwegian dialect rugga meaning coverlet, the Swedish rugg meaning ruffled hair.
The sense small carpet dates from the early 19th century. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.
Resources for Carpet versus Rug
Apple Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com: carpet
Lexico.com: carpet
Vardhan, Shesh and Anubhav Garg. “Information jJamming in Electronic Warfare: Operational requirements and techniques.” IEEExplore. 2014. Web. 3 Oct 2021. <https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7086634>.
Pinterest Photo Credits:
Carpet of Rusty Leaves Around a Tree Trunk in Autumn by Mircea Iancu is under the CC0 license, via Stock Vault. Table Carpet with Unicorns is under the CC0 1.0 license, via Picryl.
