robust, a.
(rəʊˈbʌst)
Also 6–7 robuste.
[ad. L. rōbust-us, f. rōbur strength.]
1. a. Of persons: Strong and hardy in body or constitution; possessed of rude strength; strongly and stoutly built; of a full and healthy habit.
| 1549 Compl. Scot. xvii. 146 The pepil chesit ane certan of gouuernours of the maist robust & maist prudent to be there deffendours. 1563 T. Gale Enchirid. 43 b (Stanf.), Stronge & robuste persons. c 1645 Howell Lett. iii. xxi, He being newly awak'd,..and thinking to defend himself, a robust boysterous rogue knockt him down. 1660 R. Coke Justice Vind. 9 The most furious and robust man is not the best horse-breaker and pacer. 1736 Carte Ormonde I. 576 To fall in with them sword and pike in hand, which would give the victory to the robuster men. 1789 W. Buchan Dom. Med. (1790) 31 Though grown people, who are hardy and robust, may live in such situations, yet they generally prove fatal to their offspring. 1832 Macgillivray Trav. Humboldt xviii. (1836) 258 On this journey she must have undergone hardships from which the most robust man would have shrunk. 1845 Day tr. Simon's Anim. Chem. I. 264 The individual whose blood was analysed..was a robust young man, aged 29 years. 1895 Shand Gen. Hamley I. 28 Although his constitution afterwards hardened.., at that time he was far from robust. |
| Comb. 1824 S. E. Ferrier Inherit. ix, The portrait represents a considerably larger and more robust-looking person than Miss St. Clair. |
| absol. 1836 Thirlwall Greece xx. III. 137 All other maladies terminated in this, which appeared to prey equally upon the robust and the infirm. |
b. Similarly of the body or its parts, constitution or habit, health, etc.
| 1625 Bacon Ess., Anger (Arb.) 566 Tender and Delicate Persons..haue so many Things to trouble them; Which more Robust Natures haue little Sense of. 1632 Lithgow Trav. ii. 46 Dalmatians..of a robust nature, couragious and desperate. 1719 Young Par. Job 260 Survey the warlike horse! didst thou invest With thunder his robust distended chest? 1784 Cowper Task iv. 360 Thy frame, robust and hardy, feels indeed The piercing cold, but feels it unimpair'd. 1834 Lytton Pompeii ii. i, His form was still so robust and athletic. 1860 W. Collins Wom. in White 134 How I envy you your robust nervous system. 1876 J. S. Bristowe Th. & Pract. Med. (1878) 452 The patient may seem in fair, if not in his ordinary robust, health. |
| Comb. 1884 Pall Mall G. 7 Apr. 3/1 The most robust⁓lunged must find the stifling atmosphere a severe drain on their vital force. |
c. Of plants: Strong and healthy; sturdy.
| 1756 Burke Subl. & B. iii. xvi, It is not the oak..or any of the robust trees of the forest. 1769 E. Bancroft Guiana 12 Canes,..even after this precaution, are usually too robust and luxuriant to make sugar with. 1796 C. Marshall Gardening xviii. (1813) 292 A robust and erect stature is the beauty of any plant. 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) I. 141 It grows very robust, with large leaves, flat and narrow, with thick veins. 1881 Encycl. Brit. XII. 249/2 The Brompton Stock..is a robust plant, growing 3 feet high. |
d. Zool. Of animal structures: Stout, thick-set, strongly made. Also
Anthrop. Opp.
gracile.
| 1828 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 281 Alectorides. Bill shorter than the head, or of the same length; strong, robust. 1841 Penny Cycl. XXI. 158/2 The zygomatic arches are more open and robust in the former. 1964 B. S. Kraus Basis Human Evol. vii. 224 Those [individuals] of Swartkrans and Kromdraai were considerably taller and more robust, perhaps attaining the stature and weight of modern Man. 1977 Times Educ. Suppl. 21 Oct. 11/2 The first gracile australopithicene to be found was the skull that Dart found at Sterkfontein half a century ago, but more recently robust hominids have also been identified at the South African sites. |
2. a. Coarse, rough, rude. Now
rare.
| c 1560 A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) iv. 11 To hant that game robust, And beistly appetyte. 1665 Hooke Microgr. Pref. C ij b, Feeling..being a sense that judges of the more gross and robust motions of the Particles of Bodies. 1667 Decay Chr. Piety 195 To consider our ways, to reflect not only on those robust gyant-like provocations which have thus bid defiance to Heaven. 1730–46 Thomson Autumn 529 Romp⁓loving Miss Is, haul'd about, in gallantry robust. 1748 Foote Knights ii, You are grown too headstrong and robust for me. 1872 Howells Wedding Journ. (1892) 15 He..presently began a robust flirtation with one of them. He possessed himself, after a brief struggle, of her parasol. |
b. Pertaining to, or requiring, bodily strength or hardiness; vigorous.
| 1683 Tryon Way to Health 271 Men ought not to put Women to such robust Imployments and hard Labours as many do, except pure Necessity compels them to it. a 1697 Aubrey Lives (1898) I. 107 He was an early riser and studyed well, but also took his robust pleasures of fishing, fowling, &c. 1707 Mortimer Husb. (1721) II. 31 They [chestnuts] afford a good robust Diet, and are very nourishing. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. Introd. p. ii, Most of them consisted of robust exercises. 1871 Lowell My Study Windows, Good Word for Winter, Cowper..preferred his..garden-walk to those robuster joys. |
3. a. fig. Strong, vigorous, healthy.
| 1788 New Lond. Mag. 238 To prevent the robust title of occupancy from again taking place, the doctrine of escheats is adopted. 1836 Penny Cycl. V. 264 They exhibit a robust sense, a mind stored with classical erudition. 1888 Glasgow Even. Times 24 Aug. 2/5 English is a robust language. |
| Comb. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 11 July 3/2 Probably, as a robust-minded man, he may have agreed with Kinglake. |
b. Philol. (See
quots.)
| 1776 J. Richardson Arab. Gram. 8 The three letters {arya} {arwaw} {aralif} are called weak... All the others are stiled robust. 1843 Proc. Philol. Soc. I. 138 It [Berber] has a distinction of letters..into robust and weak. The weak letters of course are W, Y, and A. |
c. Vigorous in mind, voice, etc.
| 1852 H. Rogers Ess. (1874) I. vii. 333 The beneficial influence he has exerted as a most robust thinker and a most admirable writer. 1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 203 Can this be said of any other modern? of robust Corneille? 1897 Daily News 5 Feb. 8/7 Signor Ceppi, a robust tenor. |
4. Applied to a statistical test that yields approximately correct results despite the falsity of certain of the assumptions on which it is based; also, to a calculation, process, or result if the result is largely independent of certain aspects of the input.
| 1955 Box & Andersen in Jrnl. R. Statistical Soc. B. XVII. 1 To fulfil the needs of the experimenter, statistical criteria should (1) be sensitive to change in the specific factors tested, (2) be insensitive to changes, of a magnitude likely to occur in practice, in extraneous factors. A test which satisfies the first requirement is said to be powerful and we shall typify a test which satisfies the second by calling it ‘robust’. 1966 S. Beer Decision & Control x. 232 What is important is the recognition of common features in the set of outcomes; these are the inductive inferences which may be classed as forecasts. We say that the system is robust in respect to a particular set of outcomes. 1972 Jrnl. Social Psychol. LXXXVIII. 204 The tests are robust regarding the assumptions of normality and equality of variances, but only when sample sizes are equal. 1978 Nature 16 Nov. 264/1 The ANOVA assumes equality of variances, a condition not satisfied here, however the test is robust to small deviations in homoscedasticity. 1979 Sci. Amer. Apr. 69/2 This conclusion, they point out, ‘is robust, in that we have derived it from the global geochemical distribution of uranium, and we have also derived it from the U.S. uranium-mining history and from a wide variety of subsets of the U.S. uranium-mining history’. |
Hence
roˈbustful a.;
roˈbustfulness.
| 1802 P. L. Courtier Solitude 38 Join with new ardour the robustful strife. 1879 Meredith Egoist III. xi. 241 He knew his breathing robustfulness to be as an east wind to weak nerves. |
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[3.] d. Of wine, food, etc.: full-bodied, rich; strong in taste or smell.
| 1961 Woman's Jrnl. Sept. 31/2 There are also Spanish and Portuguese wines that go well with strongly flavoured foods. The robust Spanish Chablis, the Rioja Burgundy, and the Portuguese Vila Real are examples. 1975 P. V. Price Taste of Wine v. 64/2 The steeply-terraced vineyards alongside the swiftly-flowing Rhône could not make wines other than robust and moderately full-bodied in style. 1986 A. Taylor Old School Tie vi. 59 Calèche..Elizabeth Taylor's favourite perfume..I prefer it to the more robust Je Reviens. |