roset, roseate, rosy. Phaer, tr. of Aeneid, i. 591 (L. purpureum); vii. 26 (L. roseis).
rosiall, rosy. Sir T. Elyot, Governour, bk. ii, c. 12, § 2 (first ed. 1531). [I suggest that the name ‘Rosiall’, occurring thrice in the poem called the Courte of Love, was suggested by this passage; and that the Courte of Love was later than 1581, and later than Thynne’s Chaucer, ed. 1532.]
rosiere, a rose-bush. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 9. 19. F. rosier (Cotgr.); L. rosarium; from rosa, a rose.
ros-marine, rosemary; ‘Wholesome dew, called ros-marine’, B. Jonson, Masque of Blackness (Æthiopia). L. rosmarinum, rosemary, lit. marine dew (Pliny). F. rosmarin, rosemarie (Cotgr.). See Alphita, p. 155 (s.v. Ros marinus).
rost: in phr. to rule the rost, to be absolute in authority, to domineer. Skelton, Magnyfycence, 813; Gascoigne, Steel Glas, 429. See [rule the roast].
rote, a musical instrument, a lyre. Spenser, ii. 10. 3; iv. 9. 6. ME. rote, a kind of fiddle (Chaucer), OF. rote (Didot), O. Prov. rota, ‘rote, instrument à cordes’ (Levy), also OHG. rota (Schade); probably of Celtic origin, cp. O. Irish crot, a harp, lyre; Mod. Irish cruit (Dinneen), whence ME. croude (Wyclif, Luke xv. 25). See Dict.
rote, roat, to repeat, as an echo does; to repeat a tune or song. Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph, vi (Melanthus, 8); ‘The echoes . . . each to other diligently rotes’, id., David and Goliath.
rother, a ‘rudder’; hence, controlling power. Phaer, tr. of Aeneid, vi. 859; Mirror for Mag., Clarence, st. 12. ME. rother (Gower, C. A. ii. 2494); OE. rōðer, a steering-paddle.
rouke, to squat, crouch, used fig.; ‘Bookes that happlye rouke in studentes mewes’, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, Ded. (ed. Arber, 7). See [rucke].
rouncival, rownseval, huge, gigantic, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii. 690 (with reference to the Cyclopean monsters); spelt rounceval, a woman of large build and boisterous manners, Heywood, Golden Age, A. ii (Jupiter); Nashe, Saffron Walden (Grosart, iii. 52). See [runcival pease].