d. 1400. Chaucer, Good Women, 1887. Judge infernal Mynos . . . Now cometh thy lotte! now comestow on the rynge.
. . . .]. Gesta Grayorum, 'Progr. of Eliz.,' ii. 54. His highness' master of the ordnance claimes to have all peeces gul'd in the touch-hole or broken within the RINGE.
1596. Shakspeare, Hamlet, ii. 2, 448. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within THE RING.
1632. Jonson, Magnetic Lady. Light gold, and crack'd within the ring. [This quot. also illustrates sense 1.]
1887. Francis, Saddle and Mocassin. Between them they rung in a cold deck in a faro-box.
1889. Lester Wallack, Memories [Scribner, iv. 723]. They want to ring me into it, but I do not see anything in it I can do.
RING-DROPPER (or -FALLER), subs.
phr. (thieves').—See quot. 1851-61:
hence ring-dropping: see
FAWNEY-DROPPER.—AWDELEY
(1567); Parker (1781).
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxxvii. Tom's evil genius did not . . . mark him out as the prey of ring-droppers . . . or any of those bloodless sharpers.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. of Eng., xviii. The crowd of pilferers, ring-droppers, and sharpers who infested the capital.
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., i. 389. In ring-dropping we pretend to have found a ring, and ask some simple-looking fellow if it's good gold, as it's only just picked up [they then get the fellow to buy].
Ringer, subs. (common).—A bell;
a tinkler. Fr. battante; brandillante.
Ring-man, subs. phr. (old).—The
middle, or ring finger: cf. dark-mans;
RUFF-MANS, &c.
1544. Ascham, Toxophilus, 137. When a man shooteth, the might of his shoote lyeth on the foremost finger, and on the ring-man.
2. See Ring, subs. 1.
Ring-tail, subs. (military).—A
recruit: see Snooker.
Ring-tailed roarer, subs. phr.
(American).—The nonsense name
of some imaginary beast.—Century.
Rink. To get out of one's
RINK, verb. phr. (old colloquial).—To
sow wild oats. [Rink = a
course, a race, ring, or circle.]
Rinse, subs. (common).—Any sort
of potable; lap (q. v.). Hence
as verb. = to drink; to lush
(q. v.).
Riot Act. To read the Riot
Act, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To
administer a jobation; to reprove.
Riotous-living, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Luxuries.
[Cf Luke
xv. 13.]
Rip, subs. (common).—A reprobate;
a rake (q. v.). Hence anything
censurable: as a SCREW
(q. v.) of a horse (Grose), 'a
shabby mean fellow' (Grose):
sometimes in jest.
1827. Peake, Comfortable Lodgings, i. 2. Roue. So, at last at Paris; and I'll be bound I'm the greatest rip in it.
1853. Dickens, Bleak House, lv. If it's ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up I could wish . . . to break it myself.
1892. Pall Mall Gaz., 20 Oct., 6, 1. The prisoner said a rip (an Americanism for low woman) has told him that she had been employed by the police to track him.
1900. Kipling, Stalky & Co., 25. 'Hold on, till King loses his temper,' said Beetle. 'He's a libellous old rip, an' he'll be in a ravin' paddywhack.'
Verb. (old: now chiefly American).—1. To take one's own course; to go as one will: to tear along; to drive furiously:
