Rugger is a late-19th-century British slang formation from Rugby (the game, named after Rugby School) + the Oxford '-er' suffix (as in 'soccer' from association). The quoted older senses, "-er" and "soccer", supply the semantic anchors for rugger. The formation is best read as suffixal and compound: the word rugger carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "an informal British term for the game of rugby". Related English forms include rugby. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.