1605. Shakespeare, Cymbeline, i, 6. Should he make me Live like Diana's priest, betwixt cold sheets; Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps, In your despite.
1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, iv. 3. Peace, you foul ramping jade!
1697. Poor Robin. To duel rampant Miss on a soft Bed.
1732. Fielding, Miser, iv. 15. The young fellows of this age are so rampant that even degrees of kindred cannot restrain them.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 69. A charming woman . . . open to all mankind . . . Let me see how many rampant chaps have been brought to their bearings . . . without the . . . husband being waked out of his evening nap.
3. (thieves').—A robbery with violence (Vaux, 1812); (4) = a swindle; whence (5) = a footpad; and (6) = a trickster: also rampsman and ramper: cf. Rush. As verb. = (1) to rob with violence; (2) to blackmail; and (3, racing) to bet against one's own horse; ramping (adj.) = violent; ramping-mad = noisily drunk; to ramp and reave = to get by fair means or foul (Halliwell).
1830. Moncrieff, Heart of London, ii. 1. And ramp so plummy.
1840. Lytton, Paul Clifford, viii. The latter personage, giving him a pinch in the ear, shouted out "Ramp, ramp!" and Paul found himself surrounded in a trice by a whole host of ingenious tormentors . . . this initiatory process, technically termed "ramping," reduced the bones of Paul, who fought tooth and nail in his defence, to the state of magnesia.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum. It is their business to jostle or ramp the victim, while the file picks his pocket.
1876. Runciman, Chequers, 7. A man who is a racecourse thief and ramper hailed me affably.
1880. G. R. Sims, How the Poor Live, x. These . . . were mostly ramps, or swindles, got up to obtain the gate-money.
1883. Punch, 26 May, 252, 1. "Look 'ere, this hinnocent cove has been trying a ramp on!" Crowd. Welsher! kill him! Welsher!
1885. Chamb. Journal, 28 Feb., 136. He is a ramper and bully to a couple of outside betting-men.
1889. Kipling, Cleared [in The Scots Observer]. They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide.
7. (thieves').—A hall-mark. [A 'rampant lion' forms part of the essay stamp for gold and silver.]
1879. Horsley, Jottings from Jail [Macm. xl. 500]. They told me all about the wedge, how I should know it by the ramp.
Rampage, verb. (colloquial).—To
storm; also on the rampage =
(1) in a state of excitement, from
anger, lust, violent movement, or
drink. Whence rampaging
(rampacious or rampageous) =
(1) furious, hot (q.v.), wild, or
outrageous: and (2) loud (q.v.):
whence rampageousness. Also
rampager (or rampadgeon) =
(1) a Hector; (2) a vagabond;
and (3) a wencher.
1722. Hamiltoun, Wallace, 244. Psewart rampag'd to see both man and horse So sore rebuted, and put to the worse.
1768. Ross, Helenore, 64. He rampaged . . . And lap and danc'd, and was in unco' mood.
1816. Scott, Antiquary, v. The young gentleman was sometimes heard . . . rampanging about in his room, just as if he was one o' the player folk.
1823. Galt, R. Gilhaize, i. 40. His present master was a saint of purity compared to that rampagious Cardinal.
1837. Dickens, Pickwick, xxii. A stone statue of some rampacious animal . . . distinctly resembling an insane cart-*horse.
1858. Dickens, Great Expectations, xv. Joe . . . followed me out into the road to say . . . on the rampage, Pip, and off the rampage, Pip—such is Life.
1860. Tennyson, Village Wife, vii. An' they rampaged about wi' their grooms, and was 'untin' arter the men.
