The Old French ‘ruffien,’ the Italian ‘ruffiano,’ the Spanish ‘rufian,’ all signify the setter-forward of an infamous traffic between the sexes; nor will the passages quoted below leave any doubt that this is the proper meaning of ‘ruffian’ in English, others being secondary and derived from it. At the same time the ‘ruffian’ is not merely the ‘leno,’ he is the ‘amasius’ as well. For some instructive English uses of the word, see Ascham’s Scholemaster, Wright’s edit. pp. 44, 215.
Let young men consider the precious value of their time, and waste it not in idleness, in jollity, in gaming, in banqueting, in ruffians’ company.—Homilies; Against Idleness.
Xenocrates, casting but his eye upon Polemon, who was come into his school like a ruffian, by his very look only redeemed him from his loose life.—Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, p. 112.
He [her husband] is no sooner abroad than she is instantly at home, revelling with her ruffians.—Reynolds, God’s Revenge against Murther, b. iii. hist. 11.
Who in London hath not heard of his [Greene’s] dissolute and licentious living; his fond disguising of a Master of Art with ruffianly hair, unseemly apparel, and more unseemly company?—G. Harvey, Four Letters touching Robert Greene, p. 7.
Some frenchified or outlandish monsieur, who hath nothing else to make him famous, I should say infamous, but an effeminate, ruffianly, ugly, and deformed lock.—Prynne, The Unloveliness of Love-locks, p. 27.
Rummage. At present so to look for one thing as in the looking to overturn and unsettle a great many others. It is a sea-term, and signified at first to dispose with such orderly method goods in the hold of a ship that there should be the greatest possible room, or ‘roomage.’ The quotation from Phillips shows the word in the act of transition from its former use to its present.
And that the masters of the ships do look well to the romaging, for they might bring away a great deal more than they do, if they would take pain in the romaging.—Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. i. p. 308.
To rummage (sea-term): To remove any goods or luggage from one place to another, especially to clear the ship’s hold of any goods or lading, in order to their being handsomely stowed and placed; whence the word is used upon other occasions, for to rake into, or to search narrowly.—Phillips, New World of Words.
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