subs. (common).—A reprobate; a RAKE (q.v.). Hence anything censurable: as a SCREW (q.v.) of a horse (GROSE), ‘a shabby mean fellow’ (GROSE): sometimes in jest.

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  1827.  R. B. PEAKE, Comfortable Lodgings, i. 2. Roue. So, at last at Paris; and I’ll be bound I’m the greatest RIP in it.

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  1853.  DICKENS, Bleak House, lv. If it’s ever broke to him that his RIP of a brother has turned up I could wish … to break it myself.

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  1892.  Pall Mall Gazette, 20 Oct., 6, 1. The prisoner said a RIP (an Americanism for low woman) has told him that she had been employed by the police to track him.

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  1900.  KIPLING, Stalky & Co., 25. ‘Hold on, till King loses his temper,’ said Beetle. ‘He’s a libellous old RIP, an’ he’ll be in a ravin’ paddywhack.’

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  Verb. (old: now chiefly American).—1.  To take one’s own course; to go as one will: to tear along; to drive furiously: usually in phr. LET HER RIP: also TO RIP AND STAVE. Whence RIPPER = a tearer; TO RIP AND TEAR = to be furious; TO RIP OUT = to explode; also as an oath, RIP ME! = BLAST ME! (q.v.).

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  1600.  DEKKER, The Shoemaker’s Holiday [Works (1873], i. 29]. Auaunt kitchin-stuffe, RIPPE, you browne bread tannikin, out of my sight.

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  1848.  W. T. THOMPSON, Major Jones’s Sketches of Travels, 78. He RIPPED OUT an oath that made the hair stand on my hed.

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  1869.  H. B. STOWE, Oldtown Folks, l. Ef she don’t do nothin’ more … why, I say, let ’er RIP.

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  1877.  Temple Bar, May, 109. It has its drawbacks, the principal of which is a growing tolerance of misrule and misconduct in office. “Let him RIP;” is a common verdict; “we can turn him out when his time is up.”

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  1885.  R. L. STEVENSON, Prince Otto, ii. vii. ‘Or you may leave the table,’ he added, his temper RIPPING OUT.

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  1895.  H. B. MARRIOTT-WATSON, The King’s Treasure, in The New Review, July, 2. “RIP ME,” says he, starting up, “d’ye think I could not ha’ been in the job myself?”

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  2.  (old).—To search; to rummage: espec. with a view to plunder; hence (3) to steal. RIPPER = a robber.

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  c. 1200.  Ormulum, 10,212. To RIPPENN hemm & ræfenn.

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  c. 1388.  Towneley Mysteries, 112.

        Com and RYPE oure howse, and then may ye se
          Who had hir.

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  [?].  Robin Hood and the Beggar [CHILD, Ballads, v. 190].

        And loose the strings of all thy pocks;
  I’ll RIPE them with my hand.

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  1816.  SCOTT, Old Mortality, xxiii. I e’en RIPED his pouches, as he had dune mony an honester man’s.

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