Definition of "Rus"

Rus

/ɹuːs/

proper noun
countable and uncountable, plural Rus
1. A people made up of Scandinavian warrior merchants who travelled Eastern European river-roads from the eighth century, and whose settlements around Novgorod, Kiev and the Volga and Dnieper gave rise to the Rus' principalities.
  Quotations
  In 860 the Rus’ streamed southwards and laid siege to Constantinople itself.
  2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 504
2. Kievan Rus', the medieval East Slavic state established by these same warrior merchants in the 9th century, whose capital was in Kiev.
3. Any of the medieval East Slavic principalities ruled by this class, especially Kievan Rus.
4. (poetic) The nation of Russia, especially in a transcendent or romantic sense referring to the history and culture of the country.
noun
plural Rus
1. A person from Rus.
  Quotations
  And if a Rus hits a Greek, or a Greek a Rus with a sword, a spear or any other weapon, he shall pay five litres of silver for his offence, in accordance with Rus law; and if he be unable (insolvent—Author) his property shall be sold for the best price it fetches, including the very clothes . .
  1959, Boris Dmitrievich Grekov, Kiev Rus, Foreign Languages Pub. House, p 244
  If a Varangian claimed money from a Rus, or a Rus from a Varangian, and the debtor refused to pay, the plaintiff, accompanied by twelve witnesses, . .
  1959, Sergeĭ Mikhaĭlovich Solov’ev, History of Russia from the Earliest Times , v 3 (The Shift Northward: Kievan Rus, 1154–1228), p 223
  The Church of Kievan Rus knew men well-versed in Scripture and apparently other learning of the time, such as the Metropolitans Ioann II (d. 1089) and Klimetn Smoliatich (twelfth century). The former was Greek, and the latter a Rus.
  1973, Donald W. Treadgold, The West in Russia and China: Religious and Secular Thought in Modern Times, v 1 (Russia, 1472–1917), p xxxv