Early or prematurely ripe.
1794. What rare ripe corn will you be able to save to what I sent home last Spring?—Geo. Washington to Mr. Pearce, Aug. 17: ‘Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society’ (1889), iv. 103.
1819. When a boy, I was presented with a fine rare-ripe peach.—Mass. Spy, June 9.
1860. Brunette, with a rareripe flush in her cheeks. Colour comes and goes easily—O. W. Holmes, ‘Elsie Venner,’ p. 75. (N.E.D.)
1866. President Lincoln said of a precocious boy that “he was a rareripe.”—Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ Introduction. (Italics in the original.)
