| Word | Definition |
Rabblement | Also rablement; variant forms of rabble; used also (Edmund Spenser, THE FAERIE QUEENE; 1590) of the tumult a rabble might cause. William Shakespeare in JULIUS CAESAR (1601) pictures the proffering of the crown: As hee refus'd it, the rabblement showted. For another instance, see pot-fury. |
Rabiator | A violent, noisy person. Used in the 19th century, mainly in Scotland. Probably a variant (influenced by rabid, mad) of the earlier rubiator, a scoundrel. |
Rackrent | An excessive rent; a rent virtually equal to the value of the property. Also a verb; It was a maxim with his family, we read in Samuel Richardson's CLARISSA (1748) never to rackrent old tenants or their descendants. There is a current echo in TAXI'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE of 1884: Every year growing worse than the last in this rackrent country. Pity the farmer, the needy, hard-rackrented hinde, of Josuah Sylvester's (1591) Du Bartas. James Mill in THE HISTORY OF BRITISH INDIA (1818) observed that one third to the cultivator, and two thirds to the proprietor, would be accounted a rackrent in England. |
Ragman | (1) The devil. So used in the 14th and 15th centuries. (2) Earlier raggeman, rageman (three syllables, hard g), the name given to a statue of Edward I, appointing justices to hear complaints of injuries within 25 years. By extension, a list, a roll; also called roll of ragman, ragman roll (14th and 15th centuries). By further extension, a discourse; especially, a long, rambling, and partly meaningless discourse, rigmarole. Rigmarole is a variant form of ragman roll, superseding it in this sense by 1600. Also a game of chance, played with a written roll that contained various items with strings attached, each player to pull a string and discover his prize or penalty. There is a record of two men being fined in Durham, in 1377, for playing ragman. The roll for the game was supposed to be written by King Ragman, who was praised or blamed according to the draw. Ragman's roll is also the name of certain rolls recording instruments of homage to Edward I by Balliol of Scotland in 1296 (returned to the Scots by Edward III). Also ragman('s) rew, a book or catalogue (16th century); in this sense John Olde in his translation (1556) of Walter's ANTICHRIST speaks of the noble ragge man rolls of those most holy fathers. |
Ragmatical | Ill-behaved, riotous. Smollett has Tabitha Bramble exclaim, in HUMPHREY CLINKER (1771): Roger gets this and Roger gets that; but I'd have you to know I won't be rogered at this rate by any ragmatical fellow in the kingdom. See Roger.Tobias Smollett |
Raik | The act of going; a journey; the ground over which animals usually move, pasture-land. From the 14th century; the word is an early form of rake (which had these and other meanings) , which except in dialect and Scotch largely replaced raik by 1600. Also a verb, to go, walk, wander, walk through; James Hogg in a poem of 1813 has: to raike the lonely glen. In another poem he uses the form as a noun: The wolf and the kid their raike began. |
Rakeshame | A dissolute fellow. The word was common in the 17th century. Coming earlier and outlasting rakeshame was the form rakehell, sometimes abbreviated to rakel. Edmund Spenser in THE FAERIE QUEENE (1596) says: Amid their rakehell bands They spide a lady. Also rakehellonian, one of the tribe of rakehells. The noun rake, in the sense of a man of loose ways; especially, an idle dissipated man of fashion (I8th and 19th centuries) is an abbreviation of rakehell Some (e.g., Oliver Goldsmith1 in THE GIFT, 1777: Cruel Iris, pretty rake, Dear mercenary beauty) used rake of a woman. |
Rame | (1) The bones or mere skeleton of a thing; dried stalks. J. Bell in his translation (1581) of Haddon's ANSWER TO OSORIUS said: Natural fooles do destest the stinking rames . . . of that rebellious traytour. (2) A branch of a tree. This use is from Latin ramus, branch, oar; English ramuscle (17th century), ramuscule (19th century) is a small branch. (3) A cry; a continuous repetition of the same sound also a verb, to cry, to repeat, used since the 15th century. |
Ramekin | A small amount of cheese, with bread-crumbs, eggs, etc., baked and served in a special mold. Also ramequin. The word was sometimes used of the mold (1894, little French china ramequin cases) in which the mixture was baked; thus The Connoisseur (1754, No. 19) said: Toasted cheese is already buried in rammelkins. The word usually occurred in the plural -- folks asked for more. |
Rampallion | A raspscallion (cp. scullion), a ruffian scoundrel. Perhaps related to ramp, q.v. Thomas Nashe in his STRANGE NEWES (1593) advised: Pocket not up this abuse at a rakehell rampalions hands. For an instance in Shakespeare, used of a woman, see catastrophe. |
Rampike | A dead tree; especially, a spiky stump or stem of a tree. Hence rampick, decayed; bare. A glossary of 1881 spells the word raunpick, and explains it as "bare of bark or flesh, looking as if pecked by ravens" -- as though raun pick were converted from raven-peck. A ramp (15th to 18th century) was a vulgar, brazen female; Gideon Harvey in his LETTERBOOK (1573) speaks of An insatiable ramp Of Messalina's stamp; the second syllable is probably pike, a pointed staff. A rampallion was (a male ramp) a ruffian, scoundrel. A man all skin and bones is rampick indeed. |
Rap | To seize, to snatch; to carry off. An early (16th and 17th century) form of rape, q.v.; frequent in the phrase rap and rend. Also, to transport with joy, to rouse to rapture; apparently given this sense by back-formation from rapt. William Shakespeare in CYMBELINE (1609) inquires: What . . . thus raps you? |
Raspis | A wine, belike made of raspberries, popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. Also raspays, respice. It was of 'a deepe redde enclining to blacke,' Said R. Mathew in 1662: A very good friend of mine . . . was feasted . . . with respass wine. Raspis was also an early name of the raspisberry, now raspberry. |
Rattlewatch | Town watchman |
Rearmouse | A bat (the animal); plural, rearmice. Also reremice; hryremus, reremows, and more. William Shakespeare in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1590) says: Some warre with reremise for their leathern wings. The word was used in the 12th century and still survives in dialects; Robert Browning in PARACELSUS (1835) queried: Do the rearmice still Hang like a fretwork on the gate? The German word for bat is Fledermaus, flitter-mouse; the French, chauve souris, bald mouse. The origin of the English word is not clear; the first syllable may be from Old English hreran, to move (flitter). |
Reboation | A rebellowing echo. Latin re, again + boare, boatum, to bellow. Hence reboant, loudly re-echoing. Elizabeth Barrett Browning in A VISION OF POETS (1844) speaks of Spiritual thunders . . . Crushing their echoes reboant With their own wheels. |
Reechy | Smoky; dirty, squalid. Related to reek. Used from the 15th century; surviving in dialect. William Shakespeare uses it in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1599): Like Pharaoes souldiours in the rechie painting and in CORIOLANUS: The kitchin malkin pinnes Her richest lockram 'bout her reechie necke. Note that, in the early uses of reek there were often no disagreeable implications; it means rising like mist in Shakespeare's HENRY V, in reference to the valiant English that may die in France: For there the sun shall greet them, And draw their honours reeking up to heaven; SONNET 130, which claims the poet's love as rare As any she belied with false compare, speaks of the breath that from my mistress reeks. |
Refel | To disprove, prove to be false. Also refell. Common in the 16th and 17th centuries; later, supplanted by refute. Latin refellere; re, back + fallere, to deceive, whence also fail, infallible. John Palsgrave (1550): I can not refell your argument, it is so evydent. |
Refocillate | To refresh, reanimate, comfort. Used in the 17th and 18th centuries; the noun refocillation was used, though rarely, from the 16th into the 19th, e.g., by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Focillate appears in 17th and 18th century dictionaries. The word meant literally to warm into life (re, again); Latin focillare, focillatum is from focus, hearth. Thomas Coryat in his CRUDITIES (1611) said: The first view thereof did even refocillate my spirits and tickle my senses with inward joy; Laurence Sterne in TRISTRAM SHANDY (1760) remarked: The nose was comforted, nourished, plump'd up, refresh'd, refocillated, and set agrowing forever. |
Regal | As a noun. (1) Royalty; royal authority; also, a kingdom, royal right or privilege; a ruler (Chaucer; 1385); a ring or a chalice used at a coronation. Latin regalis; rex, regem, king; whence also royal (via the French) and the adjective regal. The noun was in use from the 14th to the 17th century. The regal of Scotland, the coronation chair, placed on the stone of Scone. (2) A portable organ (usually plural, regals) common from 1550 to 1625, of reed pipes; played with keys by the right hand while the left hand worked a bellows. Also rigalle, rigoll; in French (Rabelais) regualle. (3) A groove, a slot, as in a battlement, or for a pulley or for joining boards. Used from the 15th century; also regyll, riggle; raggle, a groove in stone, as for fitting an edge of a roof. |
Relume | To kindle again. Also relumine; short for reillumine. Hence, relumination. Lumination has been superseded by illumination. Latin luminare, luminatum; lumen, luminem, light. William Shakespeare in OTHELLO (1604) declares: I know not where is that Promethean heate That can thy light relume. Often used figuratively, as in Campbell's THE PLEASURES OF HOPE (1799): Lo, nature, life, and liberty relume The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom. |
Remora | A sucking-fish, little but believed to have the power to stop a ship. Edmund Spenser in his VISION OF THE WORLD'S VANITY (1591) says: There clove unto her keele A little fish, that men call remora, Which stopt her course. The accent is evidently on the rem. The word was common in the 17th and 18th centuries, in the general sense of an obstacle, of something that held one back. That authoritie, said Edmonds in his OBSERVATIONS (1604) to Caesar's COMMENTARIES, was a remora to divers other nations of Gallia from shewing that defection by plaine and open revolt. |
Repumicate | To smooth, as with a pumicestone. Also repumication; Latin pumicem, pumice. R. Baron in THE CYPRIAN ACADEMY (1647) declared: She that wanteth [lacks] a sleekestone to repumicate her linnen, will take a pibble. |
Resipiscence | Repentance; recognition of one's mistakes; turning to a better path or opinion. Latin re, again + sapere, to taste, to discern. Hence resipiscent, returning to a sound state of mind. Sir Thomas Browne in a letter of 1672 spoke of some one so closely shut up within the holds of vice and iniquity, as not to find some escape by a postern of resipiscency. |
Rethor | An old variant of rhetor, a teacher of rhetoric; an orator; by extension, a windy speechifier. Also, a petty rhetorician or orator, a rhetorculist (17th century). |
Retiary | Pertaining to nets and webs; or to fighting with a net, like the Roman gladiatorial fighter with a net, the retiarius. Latin rete, a net. Used figuratively, as by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (see illaqueate) and Sir Thomas Browne in CHRISTIAN MORALS (1682): Our inward antagonists, like retiary and laqueary combatants, with nets, frauds, and entanglements fall upon us. |
Retromancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using things seen looking over one's shoulder. |
Revest | To clothe, to dress; applied especially (13th to 17th century) to ecclesiastics. Latin re, again (often merely emphatic) + vestire, to clothe. A common word, used also of things, as in a poem of Surrey's in Richard Tottel's MISCELLANY (1547): The pleasant plot revested green with warm. Also, to reinvest, in the various senses of invest From a mistaken notion that revest was the past participle (only), came a form revesh, revess, used from the late 14th into the 16th century; in 1555 it was said of a priest: After he hath ravisshed himself in the vestry, he commeth forth to the aultare. |
Revince | To refute, disprove. Latin re, back + vincere, to conquer. Hence also revincible, refutable. The opinion of Copernicus, said Gilbert Watts in his translation (1640) of Francis Bacon's DE AUGMENTIS SCIENTIARUM, because it is not repugnant to the phenomena, cannot be revinced by astronomical principles. |
Rhabdomancy | Divination -- foretelling events, predicting the future --using a rod or wand. |
Rhapsody | Originally, an epic poem; especially, a book of the ILIAD or the ODYSSEY, which could be presented aloud at one time. In the 16th century, rhapsody came also to mean a miscellaneous collection, a confused gathering of things, or of poems, stories, etc.; a literary work of disconnected pieces; hence, any gathering, as when Sanderson in a sermon of 1647 spoke of a cento and a rhapsody of uncircumcised nations. William Shakespeare in HAMLET (1601) speaks of a rapsidie of words. Joseph Addison in THE SPECTATOR (No. 46; 1711) remarked: Thot would look like a rhapsody of nonsense to any body but myself. The still current sense, of an exalted or exaggeratedly enthusiastic expression of feeling, came into wide use in the 18th century. |
Rhyparography | The painting of mean or sordid subjects. From Greek rhyparos, filthy. Rhyparography, in Smith's DICTIONARY OF GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES (1842) is linked with pornography; but sometimes it is synonymous with still-life or genre painting. Saintsbury in his NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE (1896) uses it of descriptive writing: The Lousiad (a perfect triumph of cleverness expended on what the Greeks called rhyparography). Also rhypography. Hence rhypographic, rhypographer, rhypographist, a painter of mean subjects; Peter Anthony Motteux in his translation (1694) of Francois Rabelais speaks of the post of puny riparographer, or riffraff-scribler of the sect of Pyrricus. Greek rhypos, dirt, filth; but Greek rhyptein, to cleanse. Hence (17th and 18th centuries) rhyptical, cleansing; a rhyptic, a cleanser. |
Rigger | Hoist tackle worker |
Riggish | Wanton, licentious. One meaning of rig (from the late 16th century) is a wanton woman; also rigmutton; cp. lace. Nay fy on thee thou rampe, thou ryg, we read in GAMMER GURTON'S NEEDLE (1575). William Shakespeare in ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1606) has the Egyptian queen praised: For vildest things Become themselves [are seemly] in her, that the holy priests Bless her, when she is riggish. Also riggite, a mocker, one that makes game of others. Benjamin Franklin in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1788) says: My being esteemed a pretty good riggite, that is a Jocular verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the society. |
Rigmarole | Also rig-my-role, riggmonrowle, and the like. See ragman. George Gordon Byron in DON JUAN (1818) declares: His speech was a fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call rigmarole. Hence rigmarolery; rigmarolic, rigmarolish. |
Rigol | A ring or circle. French rigole, water-course; hence gutter, groove. Also riggal, regal. William Shakespeare in THE RAPE OF LUCRECE (1593) says: About the mourning and congealed face Of that blacke bloud, a watrie rigoll goes, Which seems to weep upon the tainted place. |
Rim | A membrane. (This is a different word from rim, edge, border.) Thus rim-side, the flesh-side of a skin. Also, short for rim of the belly, the peritoneum. In the 16th century, rim-burst, rymbirst, rumbursin, a rupture. William Shakespeare in HENRY V (1599) says: I will fetch thy rymme out at thy throat, in droppes of crimson blood. |
Ripper | Seller of fish |
Rivage | A bank, shore. Also rive, ryve; Old French rive; Latin ripa, bank; rivus, stream. Also (14th to 16th century) rival, ryvaile, ryval, a shore, a landing place. Persons living on opposite shores were rivals; they fished in the same stream, hence the current sense. An arrival (Latin ar-, ad, to) is a coming to the shore. Gower in the CONFESSIO AMANTIS (1390) wrote of the hihe festes of Neptune Upon the stronde at the rivage. Thus (17th century) rival, a small stream; rivalet, a rivulet. |
Rocambole | Something that adds flavor of piquancy. John Vanbrugh in THE FALSE FRIEND (1702) declared: Difficulties are the rocombolle of love; I never valued an easy conquest. Also roccombo, rockenbole, rockanbowl, rocombole. Literally, a kind of leek, Spanish garlic, C. Anstey in THE NEW BATH GUIDE (1766) wrote of a man a woman must detest, who puffs his vile rocambol breath in her face; but John Evelyn in ACETARIA, OR A DISCOURSE OF SALLETS [Salads] (1699) desired a light touch on the dish, much better supplied by the gentler roccombo. |
Roger | From the name came various other uses. (1) A begging vagabond claiming to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge. Apparently in this sense the g was hard; perhaps the word was related to rogue. In the following senses, the g was soft. (2) A phallus. So used in Thomas Urquhart's translation (1653) of Francois Rabelais. Hence, to roger, to have intercourse; for an illustration of this use (which puns on the name Roger) see Ragmatical. (3) In phrases, The Jolly Roger, the pirates' flag, a white skull with two crossed bones beneath, on a black field. Roger's blast, a whirling up of dust, somewhat as a water-spout, foreboding rain. In East Anglia, 19th century. Also, a roger, a Sir Rodger. Roger de Coverley, a country dance; also, Sir Roger. At first called Roger of Coverley; the name was changed under the influence of the popular Sir Roger de Coverley introduced by Joseph Addison in THE SPECTATOR (1711). |
Romage | An earlier form of rummage, q.v. William Shakespeare has, in HAMLET (1601): This, I take it, is . . . the chief head Of this post-hast and romage in the land. |
Roofer | Lays slates or tiles |
Roper | Maker of rope or nets |
Ropery | Trickery, knavery. In William Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET (1592) the Nurse inquires: I pray you sir, what sawcie merchant was this that was so full of his roperie? In Fletcher's play THE CHANCES (1620) ropery in the first edition is replaced in the second folio by roguery. |
Roquelaure | A cloak of knee length worn by men in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Also roccelo, rockalow, and the like. Named from the French Duke of Roquelaure (1656-1738). Laurence Sterne in TRISTRAM SHANDY (1760) speaks of wrapping myself up warm in my roquelaure, and paying a visit to this poor gentleman. After the same duke, a short cloak worn by women was called a rokelay. Walter Scott, in WAVERLEY (1814) has his heroine put on her clean toy, rokelay, and scarlet plaid. |
Rosasolis | A cordial of the juice of the sundew. Latin rosa solis, rose of the sun, originally ros solis, dew of the sun. Because of its medicinal use, the drink has also been called rose of solace. Later it was made not of the plant sundew, but of brandy, sugar, and spices. The drink was popular from the mid-1 6th to the mid-1 8th century. |
Rounce robble hobble | A representation of the tumult of thunder, in Richard Stanihurst's translation (1582) of the AENEIS: A clapping fyerbolt (such as oft, with rownce robel hobble, Jove to the ground clatreth). Later writers mockingly mimicked the roaring: Thomas Nashe, in Greene's MENAPHON (1589): Then did he make heavens vault to rebounde, with rounce robble hobble of ruffe raffe roaring, and thwick thwack thurlery bouncing; Ben Jonson, in THE MASQUE OF QUEENES (1616): Rouncy is over, robble is under, A flash of light and a clap of thunder. |
Rouncival | Heroic (in size, volume); hence applied as noun or adjective to various large things. Also rownseval, rownsifall, rounsefal, rouncifold, runsivill, and the like. We are told that certain large bones of antediluvian animals were formerly taken to be bones of the heroes that fell with Roland at Roncesvalles; hereof, I take it, said Mandeville, it comes that, seeing a great woman, we say she is a rouncival. Blount in his 1674 wordbook suggests that the large 'marrowfat' rouncival pea is so called because it first came from Roncesvalles "at the foot of the Pyrenean Mountains." Dost roare? queried Thomas Dekker in SATIROMASTIX (1602); th'ast a good rouncivall voice to cry Lanthorne and candle-light. As a noun, the word was applied to (1) a heavy fall, a crash; (2) a kind of 'tumbling verse,' used for invective or flyting, not rhymed but alliterative; (3) a monster; (4) a large and boisterous or loose woman. Thomas Nashe in HAVE WITH YOU TO SAFFRON-WALDEN (1596) pictured so fulsome a fat bonarobe and terrible rouncevalL |
Rouncy | A horse, especially one for riding. A common medieval form, its origin unknown. In English 14th into the 16th century; revived in the 19th, as in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY (1875): Racehorse sired, not rouncy born. Also see Rounce robble hobble. |
Rout | Besides the current sense of disorderly retreat of a defeated army, rout (via Old French from Latin rupta, a detachment; rumpere, ruptum, to break) had a range of meanings. A company, assemblage; Chaucer in THE KNIGHT'S TALE (1386) says: To the palace rode there many a route of lordes. A flock or pack of animals; a large number of things; Chaucer, in THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE (1366): to pulle a rose of all that route to bere in my honde about. Hence in rout, in order; in a rout, in a body, in a troop. The meaning of precipitate and disorderly retreat did not develop until the end of the 16th century (e.g., Shakespeare, CYMBELINE, 1611: Then beganne ... a rowt, confusion thicke: forthwith they flye), but by the 13th century the word had developed unfavorable connotations. A disorderly or disreputable crowd. (By 14th century law) a gathering of three or more persons with criminal intent. The rabble; especially, the common rowt (Shakespeare, THE COMEDY OF ERRORS), the vulgar rout. Hence, a riot, disturbance, uproar. Also, a clamor, a fuss; especially (17th-19th century) , to make a rout about something. Also, sway, influence; to rule the rout, to bear the rout, to have full control. And in the 18th and 19th centuries rout became (by humor, from the sense of disorderly crowd) a very common word for a fashionable gathering, a large evening party (Henry Fielding, in AMELIA, 1742; Johnson, 1751; Tobias Smollett, 1771; Kinglsey, 1858; Ruskin, 1887). Hence such combinations as rout-cake, a rich cake for a reception or party; Thackeray in VANITY FAIR (1848) boasts: He managed a couple of plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout cakes. Routseat, rout-chair, benches or folding chairs brought in for the party; rout-glasses, rout-china, and the like. Little wonder Lady Lennox in her LIFE AND LETTERS (1767) sighed: I own I am wore to death with routing. As Hood remarks in MISS KILMANSEGG (1845): For one of the pleasures of having a rout Is the pleasure of having it over. |
Runcation | Weeding. John Evelyn in SYLVA (1664) gave suggestions for the more commodious runcation, hawing, and dressing the trees. |
Rupellary | Rocky. Latin rupes, rock, rupestral, rupestrean, rupestrine, relating to, growing or living among, or carved or written on rocks. Also rupicoline, rupicolous, dwelling among rocks. John Evelyn in his DIARY of 27 February, 1700, noted: In this rupellary nidary do the fowle lay eggs and breede. |
Ruskin | (1) A fur; used from the 13th to the mid-16th century. In A TREATYSE OF A GALAUNT (1550) we read: Thou ruskyn galaunt, that poverte doth menace, For all thy warrocked hoode and thy proude araye. (2) A container made of bark or roots; also, butter kept in such a vessel. Irish rusg, bark. Thomas d'Urfey in his PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY (1719) said: I have ruscan and cream joy, wherewith you may slabber you. (3) A small rusk, a piece of crisp toasted bread. (4) In Ruskin linen; Ruskin pottery, Ruskin ware: after John Ruskin (1819-1900) , who believed in combining utility and art. |
Rynt | To give way; stand aside. Related to aroint, q.v. Also rhint, roint, roynt. Ray in 1674 recorded as proverbial Rynt you, witch, quoth Besse Locket to her mother; but Rynt thee! was the milkmaid's dismissal to a cow as she finished milking it. |
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