rucksack

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /ˈrʌkˌsæk/ UK /ˈrʌksæk/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a bag with shoulder straps carried on the back; a backpack

He hoisted his heavy rucksack and set off up the trail.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a bag with shoulder straps... backpack knapsack pack haversackkitbag

Simplified etymology

Rucksack was adopted in the mid-19th century from a southern German word literally meaning “back sack.”

Etymology

From German Rucksack, from dialectal Rucken (standard Rücken, 'back') + Sack ('bag, sack'), thus literally 'back-bag'.

Rucksack German

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# rucksack

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈrʌkˌsæk/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈrʌksæk/

## Meanings
1. a bag with shoulder straps carried on the back; a backpack

## Examples
- He hoisted his heavy rucksack and set off up the trail.

## Synonyms
- backpack
- knapsack
- pack
- haversack
- kitbag

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: Rucksack

## Etymology
From German Rucksack, from dialectal Rucken (standard Rücken, 'back') + Sack ('bag, sack'), thus literally 'back-bag'.

## AI Etymology
Rucksack comes from German Rucksack, from dialectal Rucken (standard Rücken, 'back') + Sack ('bag, sack'), thus literally 'back-bag'. The historical chain includes German Rucksack. The quoted older senses, "back", "bag, sack", and "back-bag", supply the semantic anchors for rucksack. The formation is best read as compound and borrowed: the word rucksack carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a bag with shoulder straps carried on the back; a backpack". The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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