rowel, to insert a circular piece of leather, with a hole in the centre, into a wound, to cause a discharge of humours; to insert a kind of seton; ‘He has been ten times rowelled’, Beaumont and Fl., Scornful Lady, iii. 2 (Young Loveless).
rowen, the second growth of grass in a season, the aftermath, eddish; the second crop of hay. Tusser, Husbandry, § 57. 25; Worlidge, Syst. Agric.; Blount, Glossogr. (s.v. Edish); rowen grass, Holland, Pliny, xviii. 28; rowen hay, id., rowen partridge, a partridge frequenting a field of ‘rowen’, id., Plutarch’s Morals, 570 (NED.); also rowen, ‘As for the partridges . . . the old rowens full subtilly seeme to wait’, id., 219. The word ‘rowen’ in various forms is in prov. use from Linc. and Worc. to Kent and Hants. (EDD.). ME. raweyne hey, ‘fenum serotinum’ (Prompt.); rewayn (in Bp. Hatfield’s Survey, ann. 1382, Surtees, 170). Norm.F. *rewain (mod. Picard rouain) = F. regain; gaïn = Romanic type guadīmen, wadīmen, of Germ. origin, cp. OHG. weida, pasture (Schade). See Thomas, Essais Phil. Fr. (s.v. Regain), p. 371.
royal, a gold coin of the value of ten shillings, in Shaks., not expressly mentioned, but alluded to by way of punning, Richard II, v. 5. 67; 1 Hen. IV, i. 2. 157; 2 Hen. IV, i. 2. 28.
royne, to grumble, to murmur discontentedly; ‘Yet did he murmure with rebellious sound and softly royne’, Spenser, F. Q. v. 9. 33. A north-country word (EDD.). See NED.
royne, to pare away, curtail, alter. Phaer, Aeneid x, 35 (L. Flectere iussa). OF. roignier, to cut so as to round off. See [proine] (to prune).
roynish, scurvy, poor. As You Like It, ii. 2. 8; rough, coarse, Tusser, Husbandry, § 102. Cp. F. ‘rongneux, scurvie, mangy’; ‘rongne, the mange’ (Cotgr.); mod. F. rogne, rogneux.
rub, in a card-game, to take all the cards in a suit. Heywood, A Woman killed, iii. 2 (Wendoll); with a quibbling reference to rob; ‘Piller, to rub, or rob, at cards’, Cotgrave.
ruck, a huge fabulous bird, supposed to be bred in Madagascar. Drayton, Noah’s Flood (footnote—the mighty Indian bird); Burton, Anat. Mel. ii. 2. 2; Herrick, Misc. Poems, 7 (NED.). Arab. rukhkh. See Stanford (s.v. Roc).
ruck, to belch forth, utter. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iv. 488. L. ructare. See NED.
rucke, to couch, squat; ‘On the house did rucke A cursed owle’, Golding, Metam. xv. 400; Warner, Albion’s England, vii. 37. 121. Still in use in various parts of England, see EDD. (s.v. Ruck, vb.5). ME. rukkyn (Prompt. EETS., see note, no. 1851). See [rook], [rouke].