subs. (venery).—1. The female pudendum: also HAIRY RING, HANS CARVELS RING (q.v.) and BLACK-RING. Hence CRACKED (or CLIPPED) IN THE RING = seduced.
1597. J. LYLY, Woman in Moon, iii. 2. Lear. What! will Pandora be thus light? Gun. … If she were twenty graines lighter I would not refuse her, provided alwayes she be not CLIPT WITHIN THE RINGE.
1613. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Captain, ii. 1.
| Come to be married to my lady’s woman, | |
| After she’s CRACK’D I’ TH’ RING. |
1622. ATLEY, Book of Airs, s.v.
1653. URQUHART, Rabelais, III. xxviii. Never fail to have continually the RING of thy wife’s commodity upon thy finger.
1660. J. WILSON, Cheerful Airs, s.v.
c. 1700. PRIOR, Hans Carvel.
| Hans took the RING … | |
| And thrusting it beyond his Joint, | |
| ’Tis done, he cry’d … | |
| ’Tis done.—What’s done, You drunken Bear? | |
| You’ve thrust your Finger God knows where. |
2. (colloquial).—A place set apart for, or a concourse engaged in, some specific object: as (racing) = (1) an enclosure used for betting, and (2) the bookmakers therein; (pugilists’) = (3) the circle, square, or parallelogram within which a fight takes place: hence THE PRIZE RING = the world of pugilists; (horse-dealers’) = (4) the space within which horses are exhibited at fair, market, or auction; (general) = (5) a combination for controlling a market or political measure; in America a TRUST.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785). Hence RINGMAN = a BOOKMAKER (q.v.).
1705. FARQUHAR, The Twin Rivals, i. 1. I fly at nobler game; THE RING, the Court, Pawlett’s and the Park.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, 57. Ruffian’d the reeling youngsters round the RING.
1822. SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, ii. Cold water and … vinegar applied … by the bottle-holders in a modern RING.
1845. B. DISRAELI, Sybil; or, The Two Nations, I. ii. ‘Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?’ sang out a gentleman in the RING at Epsom.
1848. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, xix. One day, in THE RING, Rawdon’s Stanhope came in sight.
1855. TOM TAYLOR, Still Waters Run Deep, ii. 2. I should have done better to have stuck by Tattersall’s and the Turf. THE RING are sharp fellows.
1857. G. A. LAWRENCE, Guy Livingstone, ix. No RINGMEN to force the betting and deafen you with their blatant proffers.
1871. Manchester Guardian, 23 Dec. ‘American RINGS and Lobbyists.’ The modern political RING he described as a combination of selfish bad men, formed for their own pecuniary advancement.
1877. Nation, xiii. 333 [Century]. A [political] RING is, in its common form, a small number of persons who get possession of an administrative machine, and distribute the offices or other good things connected with it among a band of fellows, of greater or less dimensions, who agree to divide with them whatever they make.
1888. Daily Chronicle, 12 July. The victory was very popular, and by the success of Satiety the RING sustained a severe blow.
3. (old).—‘Money extorted by Rogues on the High-way, or by Gentlemen Beggers.’—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
Verb. (common).—1. To manipulate; spec. to change: e.g., TO RING CASTORS = to exchange hats (GROSE); TO RING THE CHANGES = (1) to substitute bad money for good; and (2) so to bustle that change is given wrong.—GROSE (1785); VAUX (1812).
1678. BUTLER, Hudibras, III. iii.
| Without the admirable skill | |
| To wind and manage it at will … | |
| And RING THE CHANGES upon cases. |
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 4. The CHANGES were just beginning TO RING upon some new subject.
1828. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Living Picture of London, 45. Jarvis … after turning your money over and over … declares they ring bad, and you must change them for good ones. If you appear tolerably ‘soft,’ and will ‘stand it,’ he perhaps refuses these also, after having RUNG THE CHANGES once more. This is called a double do.
2. (thieves’).—See quot.
1863. Cornhill Magazine, vii. 91. When housebreakers are disturbed and have to abandon their plunder, they say that they have ‘RUNG themselves.’
3. (Australian).—To patrol cattle by riding round and round them. Also TO RING UP.
4. (American).—To create a disturbance; TO RACKET (q.v.).
5. (old).—To talk: spec. to scold: of women.—GROSE.
PHRASES.—TO RING THE HORSESHOES (tailors’) = to welcome a man returning from a drinking bout; TO GO THROUGH THE RING = to go bankrupt, to be WHITEWASHED (q.v.); TO RING IN (American) = (1) to quote; to implicate, (2) to get the better of, (3) in gaming, to add to (or substitute) cards in a pack surreptitiously: whence TO RING IN A COLD DECK = to substitute a prepared pack of cards; CRACKED IN THE RING = (1) flawed; (2) see subs., sense 1; TO COME ON THE RING = to take one’s turn; TO TAKE THE MANTLE AND RING = to vow perpetual widowhood. Also see BALL.
d. 1400. CHAUCER, Legende of Goode Women, 1887.
| Juge infernal Mynos, of Crete king, | |
| Now cometh thy lotte; now COMMESTOW ON THE RYNGE! |
[?]. Gesta Grayorum, ‘The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth,’ ii. 54. His Highnes Master of the Ordinance claimes to have all peeces guld in the touch-hole, or broken WITHIN THE RINGE.
1596. SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, ii. 2, 448. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not CRACK’D WITHIN THE RING.
1632. JONSON, The Magnetic Lady. iii. 6. Pra. Of light gold. Dia. And CRACK’D WITHIN THE RING. [This quot. also illustrates sense 1.]
1887. F. FRANCIS, Jun., Saddle and Moccasin, xii. 225. One day he got half-a-dozen tin-horn gamblers together, and between them they put up a cold deck in a faro-box. [Note: TO ‘RING IN A COLD DECK’ is to order in and substitute a fresh pack, in which the cards are prearranged.]
1888. LESTER WALLACK, Memories of the Last Fifty Years [Scribner’s Magazine, iv. Dec., 723]. They want TO RING me INTO it, but I do not see anything in it I can do.
