Rothschild. See Come.
Rotten-row. To belong to Rotten-row, verb. phr. (naval). To be laid up as past service: of ships.
Rotten-sheep, subs. phr. (Fenian).—See
quot.
1889. Daily News, 3 July, 6. Sir Richard Webster suddenly asked him if rotten sheep was a Fenian expression. It would mean traitor or a useless fellow, said Mr. Davitt, adding that he himself had used it in a letter.
Rouge, subs. (Eton).—A point in
the Eton game of football: 3
rouges = 1 goal.
Rough, subs. and adj. (old colloquial:
now largely recognised).—A
ruffian: see quot. 1868. As
adj. = 'uncouth, hard' (B. E.),
severe: also (of fish) coarse or
stale. Also to cut (or turn)
up rough (or to rough up)
= (1) to be annoyed, and (2)
to use strong language; to
rough one = to vex; to
rough it (or lie rough) = (1)
to endure hardship (Grose); (2)
to take pot-luck; and (3) to sleep
in one's clothes (B. E., Grose);
rough-and-ready = unpolished,
happy-go-lucky; rough on =
hard, severe.
1814. Austen, Mansfield Park, xxxix. Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender, and not used to rough it like the rest of us.
1843. Punch, iv. 254. He has, to use his own expression, roughed-it all through his life.
1851-61. Mayhew, London Lab., i. 55. The poorer classes live mostly on fish, and the "dropped" and "rough" fish is bought chiefly for the poor.
1857. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, iv. There was a railway in progress near, and the navvies and other roughs came flocking in by hundreds.
1857. F. Locker, Mabel. My jealous Pussy cut up rough The day before I bought her muff With sable trimming.
1858. Trollope, Dr. Thorne, xxii. He was not going to hang back . . . he had always been rough and ready when wanted—and then, he was as ready as ever, and rough enough, too, God knows.
1860-5. Motley, Un. Netherlands, iv. 138. The great queen . . . was besought . . . to name the man to whom she chose that the crown should devolve. 'Not to a rough,' said Elizabeth, sententiously and grimly.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, iii. Drysdale seemed to prick up his ears and get combative whenever the other spoke, and lost no chance of roughing him in his replies.
1868. Dickens, All Year Round, 10 Oct. I entertain so strong an objection to the euphonious softening of ruffian into rough, which has lately become popular, that I restore the right word to the heading of this paper.
1870. Bret Harte, Luck of Roaring Camp. Yet a few of the spectators were, I think, touched by her sufferings. Sandy Tipton thought it was rough on Sal.
1872. Judy, 29 May, 59, 2. Have the ornaments handy, in case he should turn up rough.
1883. Black, Yolande, 1. A lot of English servants, who don't know what roughing it in a small shooting-box is like?
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, 18 Nov., I, 3. It must have been during the early months of 1852 that Lord Salisbury "roughed it" on the colonial goldfields.
1893. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, 80. Going to rough up. Ibid., 40. Playing it rough.
1900. White, West End, 355. She'll cut up rough. But when she hears what you expect . . . she'll have a different feeling about it.
Rough on rats, phr. (common).—A hard case.
See Ruff.
