Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to get angry with; in fig. use, to pain.

1882		J.F. Mitchell ‘Jimmy Johnson’s Holiday’ 🎵 Then Jimmy rucked and out got chucked.
1892		E.J. Milliken ’Arry Ballads 71: Mine rucked when I turned up in trousers in checks.
1905		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘What Winifred Wanted’ The Sporting Times 29 Apr. 1/3: And at last her spouse ‘rucked,’ and there isn’t a doubt / That the lady was very much hustled about.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene iii: The ol’ lady’ll ruck if I don’t.
1966		P. Willmott Adolescent Boys of E. London (1969) 118: The governor of my place is horrible. You do something and he rucks you if you take more than ten minutes for a quarter of an hour’s job.

2. to lay information against, to inform on.

1884		Daily News 20 Sept. 2/2: I told the prisoner that I was not going to ruck on an old pal .
1889		Answers 13 Apr. 313: To such of their own fraternity who ruck or ‘blab’ upon them, they most certainly entertain feelings of the deepest hatred [F&H].
1890		Proc. Old Bailey 15 Dec. 292: He said to his mother, ‘Don’t let her out; can’t you throw her down the b—cellar-stairs, and have Mrs. Hogg on her, unless she promises that she won’t ruck’.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 270: The snider sticks closer than a brother, till he gets the bookie’s brief ... unless the bookie rucks, and then he greases.
1928		Framlingham Wkly News 8 Dec. 3/7: Thieves’ Dialect [...] To ‘ruck’ is to back on a pal.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 156: Sneed held the man’s look, recognising the unease he felt about the proposition, wondering if Pauline had been rucking him.

3. to scold, to tell off.

1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 109: I saw I mustn’t keep rucking him.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene vi: ’Fraid she’ll ruck yer.
1977		G.F. Newman Villain’s Tale 146: ‘Did she know how you got your living?’ Lynn shrugged evasively. ‘She was always rucking me to quit.’.
2006		D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 112: Carl didn’t want to know and I heard Anna rucking him later for turning it down.

4. to involve oneself in a fight, esp. a gang fight; thus rucking n.

1950		P. Tempest Lag’s Lex. 182: ruck. To make a row; to create a disturbance; to get into trouble.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 236: Chucky may have been the big cheese when it came to rucking [etc.].

5. to masturbate.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 995: [...] later C.20.

6. to fight, thus rucking, a fight.

1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] ‘Come up Swiss for the rucking fellers? Break a few hooters’.
2004		(con. 1980) N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 222: ‘What are we rucking for?’ he asked.