Rising means “more than.” The rise is the excess.
1775. To be sold, an elegant little black Mare, rising six years.—Mass. Gazette, Feb. 13.
1802. Strayed from the subscriber on Sunday the 7th instant, a red cow rising four years old.—Lancaster (Pa.) Journal, Sept. 13.
1805. Superior is a bright bay, with a star and snip, rising nine years old.—Advt., id., June 7.
1805. Young Merry Andrew is now in high plight, a beautiful dark bay, rising six years old.—Id., June 14.
1809. Didn’t I give fifteen guineas for him, barring the luck penny, at the fair of Knockecroghery, and he rising four year old at the same time?—Maria Edgeworth, ‘Ennui,’ ch. vi.
1817. “How much wheat did you raise this year?” “A little rising of five thousand bushels.”—J. K. Paulding, ‘Letters from the South,’ ii. 121. (N.E.D.)
1823. Taken up by Daniel Munro, one Sorrel Mare, supposed to be rising four years old.—Missouri Intelligencer, March 25.
1824. The amount received for the Greek cause is not certainly known to us. We have understood it to be rising of $400.—Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette, Jan. 30.
1825. I brought with me to this country … rising of two thousand guineas, with part of which I bought a farm in Pennsylvania.—J. K. Paulding, ‘John Bull in America,’ p. 217 (N.Y.).
1840. Squintus Curtius is rising nine.—John P. Kennedy, ‘Quodlibet,’ p. 260 (1860).
1842. Look at the last legislature. They did not hold on above two months, and passed rising of two hundred laws, and didn’t work o’ Sundays neither!—Mrs. Kirkland, ‘Forest Life,’ ii. 67.
1843. Brother George counted the strokes of his arm upon the cushion, and thinks he rose a hundred in the course of the sermon.—Cornelius Mathews, ‘Writings,’ p. 82.
1845. I do not propose to number [the States yet to be admitted] but I set them down at twenty and the rise.—Mr. Porter of Michigan, U.S. Senate: Cong. Globe, p. 154, Appendix.
1847. My sister Lizzy, then I believe about a year old, while I was a little rising three.—Dr. D. Drake, ‘Pioneer Life in Kentucky,’ p. 15.
1848. James Smithson bequeathed to the U.S. rising half a million of dollars.—Bartlett.
1846. Gen. K[earny] is a man rising fifty years of age.—Edwin Bryant, ‘What I saw in California,’ p. 428 (N.Y.).
1851. “How many [chickens] have you?” “The rise of seventy and three hens a-settin!”—J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., p. 157.
1853. “He’s a nice family hoss.” “Heow old is he?” asked Mrs. Stebbins. “He’s risin’ six years,” said Zebulon, and so he was.—Durivage, ‘Life Scenes,’ p. 192. (Italics in the original.)
1854. He pretended to be thirty and the rise, but was, at the least, fifty.—J. G. Baldwin, ‘Flush Times,’ p. 171.
1854. Rising six feet in his stockings, large-boned, angular, muscular, without an ounce of surplus flesh, he was as active and as full of energy as a panther.—Id., p. 313.
1856. Ther was risin’ a hundred varses on’t.—Whitcher, ‘The Widow Bedott Papers,’ No. 15.
1861. Gen. Harney is a little rising fifty years old.—Oregon Argus, Feb. 9.
