adj. (colloquial).—1.  Stinking, hircine, abominable to the nose: cf. GOATISH. Also RAMMY.

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  1383.  CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, 16,409, ‘The Chanones Yemannes Tale.’ Her savour is so RAMMISH and so hoot.

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  d. 1529.  SKELTON [DYCE, Works, i. 144]. Thou RAMMYSCHE stynkyng gote.

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  1601.  JONSON, The Poetaster, iii. 1. Hang him, fusty satyr, he smells all goat; he carries a RAM under his armholes.

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  1607.  MIDDLETON, The Phœnix, i. 2. Whose father being a RAMMISH ploughman, himself a perfumed gentleman.

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  1611.  COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. Bouquin. Ranke, RAMMISH, goatlike.

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  1621.  BURTON, The Anatomy of Melancholy, III. III. iii. 1. A nasty rank, RAMMY, filthy, beastly quean.

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  1670.  COTTON, Burlesque upon Burlesque: or, The Scoffer Scofft [Works (1725), 165].

        Do you not love to smell the Roast
Of a good RAMMISH Holocaust?

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  2.  (colloquial).—Lustful; on HEAT (q.v.): also RAMMY and RAMMISHNESS; RAMMAKING = wantonness and RAM-SKYT (see quot. c. 1400).—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).

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  c. 1400.  Towneley Mysteries [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 200. We see RAM-SKYT … applied to a woman skittish as a ram].

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  1635.  QUARLES, Emblems, ii. 1. Go, Cupid’s RAMMISH pander, go.

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