1843. Carlyle, Past and Present, ii. i. A blustering, dissipated human figure . . . tearing out the bowels of St. Edmundsbury Convent . . . in the most ruinous way by living at rack and manger there.
Rackabimus, subs. (Scots').—See
quot.
1808. Jamieson, Dict. s.v. Rackabimus. A sudden or unexpected stroke or fall; a cant term . . . It resembles racket.
RACKAB0NES (or RACK-OF-BONES,
subs. (American).—A skinny
person or animal; a bag of
bones (q.v.); a shape (q.v.).
1862. New York Tribune, 13 June. He is a little afraid that this mettlesome charger cannot be trusted going down hill; otherwise be would let go of the old rackabones that hobbles behind.
Racket, subs. (old).—1. A confusion,
sportive or the reverse:
whence (2) generic for disorder,
clamour or noisy merriment
(B. E., c.1696); also (3) any
matter or happening (Grose,
1785); also = a general verb of
action. Thus, to racket about
(round, through, &c.) = to
go the rounds at night; to go
on the racket = to spree
(q.v.); to raise a racket =
to make a disturbance; 'What's
the racket?' = 'What's going
on?'; to be in a racket =
to be part in a design; to
work the racket = to carry
on a matter (see quots. 1785 and
1851, and cf. rig, lay, &c.:
whence racket-man [thieves']
= a thief); to stand the
racket = (1) to pay a score, and
(2) to take the consequences;
without racket = without a
murmur; to tumble to the
racket = (1) to understand, TO
twig {q.v.), and (2) see quot.
1890; rackety (or racketty)
= (1) noisy, and (2) dissipated;
racketer (or rackapelt) =
a whoremonger or spreester
(q.v.).
1565. Parker, Correspondence (Parker Soc), 234. I send you a letter sent to me of the racket stirred up by Withers, of whom ye were informed, for the reformation of the university windows.
1598. Shakspeare, 2 Hen. IV. ii. 2. That the tennis-court keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there.
1609. Jonson, Case is Altered, iv. 4. Then think, then speak, then drink their sound again, And racket round about this body's court.
1678. Cotton, Virgil Travestie [Works (1725) 100]. And leads me such a fearful racket.
1698. Unnatural Mother [Nares]. Yonder haz been a most heavy racket . . . there is a curious hansom gentlewoman lies as dead as a herring, and bleeds like any stuck pig.
c.1707. Old Ballad, 'The Long Vacation' [Durfey, Pills (1707), iii. 65]. We made such a noise, And con[found]ed a racket; My Landlady knew, I'd been searching the placket.
1751. Smollett, Pickle, ii. Goblins that . . . keep such a racket in his house, that you would think . . . all the devils in hell had broke loose upon him.
1753. Richardson, Grandison, 1. 117. I shall be a racketer, I doubt.
1767. Sterne, Tristam Shandy, ii. 6. Pray, what's all that racket over our heads.
1772. Bridges, Homer Burl., 281. Without the least demur or racket.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Racket. Some particular kinds of fraud and robbery are so termed, when called by their flash names . . . as the Letter-racket; the Order-racket . . . on the fancy of the speaker. In fact, any game may be termed a racket . . . by prefixing thereto the particular branch of depredation or fraud in question.
1789. Parker, Life's Painter, 'Happy Pair.' And stood the racket for a dram.
1809. Byron, Lines to Mr. Hodgson. Then I'd 'scape the heat and racket Of the good ship, Lisbon Packet.
