1893. Standard, 29 Jan., 2. We have to be out in the road early, you know, to secure our "Toby" (great laughter). That's plain. We don't rock Romany all day long (laughter).
1894. A. Morrison [Strand Mag., July, 60]. Hewitt could rokker better than most Romany chals themselves.
Rocketer, subs. (sporting).—A
flushed pheasant, rising quick and
straight; rocketting = rising
straight.
1869. Quarterly Rev., cxxvii. 387. The driven partridge and the rocketing pheasant are beyond the skill of many a man who considers himself a very good shot.
1884. Field, 6 Dec. It is nonsense to say that a rocketer is easily disposed of.
1888. Harper's Mag., lxxvii. 182. Presently an old cock-pheasant came rocketing over me.
Rock-scorpion, subs. phr. (naval
and military).—A mongrel Gibralterine:
Spanish, Portuguese,
French, Genoese, Barbary Hebrew,
Moorish, negro—a mixture
of all mettles.
Rocky (rocked, or rocketty),
adj. (common).—1. Broken: by
drink, illness, poverty; and (2)
difficult; dubious; debateable.
Hence to go rocky = to go to
pieces; to go wrong. Whence
rockiness = (1) craziness; (2)
incapacity, utter or partial; off
one's rocker = crazy; rocked
in a stone kitchen = 'the
person spoken of is a fool, his
brains having been disordered by
the jumbling of his cradle'
(Grose).
1885. D. Telegraph, 28 Dec. Let him keep the fact of things having gone rocky with him as dark as he can.
1892. Nat. Observer, 20 Feb., 352, 1. Though the morals were rocky . . . the society was very good.
1896. Crane, Maggie, xiv. I call it rocky treatment for a fellah like me.
1897. Sporting Times, 13 Mar., 1, 2. It dawned upon the crowd that he was a bit rocky in his aspirates.
Rod, subs, (common).—An angler.
1886. Fishing Gazette, 30 Jan. The late Sir F. Sykes, a first-rate rod.
2. (venery).—The penis: see Prick: also fishing-rod. Hence as verb. = to copulate.
See Breach, Pickle, Tail.
Rod-maker, subs. phr. (Winton).—'The
man who made the rods
used in Bibling (q.v.).—Mansfield
(c. 1840).
Rodney. A regular Rodney,
subs. phr. (old).—An idle fellow;
a lazybones.
Rodomontade, subs. (old colloquial: now recognised).—Boasting; swagger. Hence Rodomont = a boaster. [A character in Ariosto.]
Roe, subs. (venery).—The semen:
see Cream. Hence to shoot
one's roe = to emit.
Rof-efil, subs. phr. (back slang).—A
life sentence; 'for life.'
Roger, subs. (Old Cant).—1. A
portmanteau; a poge (q.v.).—B.
E. (c. 1696); Grose (1785).
2. (Old Cant).—A goose: also Roger (or tib) of the buttery.—Harman (1567); Dekker (1609); B. E. (c. 1696); Grose (1785).
1622. Fletcher, Beggar's Bush, v. 1. Margery praters, Rogers, and Tibs o' th' Buttery.
