1780. Tomlinson, Slang Pastoral, viii. To roll in her ivory, to pleasure her eye.
1789. Parker, Life's Painter, 'The Happy Pair.' Moll Blabbermares and Rowling Joe. [Note, a kind of fellow who dresses smart or what they term natty.] Ibid. Then we'll all roll in bub and grub. Ibid. Up to St. Giles's they roll'd, sir.
1790. Old Song, 'The Flash Man of St. Giles' [The Busy Bee]. We roll in every knowing rig.
c. 1824. Egan, Boxiana, iii. 621, 622. The boldest lad That ever mill'd the cly, or roll'd the leer. Ibid. With rolling kiddies, Dick would dive and buy.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford (1854), 18. He merely observed by way of compliment, that Mr. Augustus and his companions seemed to be rolling kiddies.
1836. Dickens, Sketches, 'Characters,' vii. That grave, but confident, kind of roll peculiar to old boys in general,
1837. Hook, Jack Brag [Latham]. He described his friends as rollicking blades.
1865. G. Meredith, Rhoda Fleming, xxix. He had not even money enough to pay the cabman. . . . He rollicked in his present poverty.
1877. Pascoe, Everyday Life, &c. Anything approaching swagger is severely rebuked; there is no more objectionable quality than that understood by the expression, "He's got such a horrid roll on."
1893. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads. It sets a chap fair on the roll.
Roller, subs. (Oxford University).—1.
A roll-call.
2. (Stock Exchange).—In pl. = United States Rolling Stock.
3. (old).—In pl., the horse and foot patrols.—Grose (1785); Vaux (1812).
4. (old).—A go-cart.
1660. Smyth, Lives of Highwaymen, II. 50. He could run about without a rowler or leading-strings.
5. (common).—A big wave coming in from a distance, and so with an enormous energy: also runner.
1855. Kingsley, Westw. Ho, xxxii. Rollers of the vast Atlantic . . . with a thousand crests of flying foam.
Rolley, subs. (common).—A
vehicle.
Rollickers, subs. (military).—The
2nd Bat. The Princess Victoria's
Royal Irish Fusiliers (formerly
the Eighty-Ninth Foot). Also
(1798) 'Blayney's Blood-hounds.'
Rolling-pin. See Pin.
Roll-me-in-the-dirt, subs. phr.
(rhyming).—A shirt.
Roll-up. See Roly-poly.
Rom. See Romany.
Romance, subs. (colloquial).—A
lie; a tarradiddle. Hence, as
verb = 'to lie pleasantly, to
Stretch in Discourse.'—B. E.
(c. 1696).
1651. Evelyn, Diary, 6 Sep. The knight was . . . not a little given to romance when he spake of himselfe.
d. 1721. Prior, An Eng. Padlock. A Staple of Romance and Lies, False Tears and real Perjuries.
d. 1742. Bailey, Erasmus, I. 53. I hear others romancing about Things they never heard nor saw . . . with that Assurance that . . . they persuade themselves they are speaking Truth all the While.
Roman-fall, subs. (obsolete).—A
posture (c. 1868) in walking: the
head well forward and the small
of the back well in: see Grecian
Bend.
1870. Orchestra, 25 Mar., 'Grand Comic Concert.' The ladies have their Grecian bend, our typical gentlemen explains a correspondent masculine affectation which he dubs The Roman Fall.
