ruffpeck, bacon (Cant). ‘Ruff peck, bacon’, Harman, Caveat, p. 83; ‘Here’s ruffpeck and casson’ (i.e. bacon and cheese), Brome, Jovial Crew, ii. 1 (Song).
rug-gown, a gown made of rug or coarse frieze; worn by watchmen; hence, allusively, a watchman; ‘There a whole stand of rug-gowns routed manly’, Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, iv. 2 (Launcelot); also, worn by astrologers, ‘You sky-staring coxcombs . . . you are good for nothing but to . . . make rug-gowns dear’, B. Jonson, Every Man out of Hum. iii. 2 (Sordido); Marston, What you Will, iv. 1 (Lampatho).
rule, course of proceeding, line of conduct. Twelfth Nt. ii. 3. 132. ME. rule, conduct (York Myst. xxvi. 34).
rule, disorder, stir, riot; ‘What a rule is there! Quid turbae est!’, W. Walker, Idiomat. Anglo-Lat. 381; ‘Such rule and ruffle make the rowte that cum to see our geare’, Drant, Horace, Ep. ii. 1; ‘What a reul’s here. You make a nice reul’, Thorseby, Letter to Ray (EDD.). ‘Reul’ (or ‘Rule’) appears in EDD. as a north-country word, meaning to behave in a rude, disorderly manner. It is identical with the prov. word ‘roil’, to be noisy, boisterous, turbulent, see EDD. (s.v. Roil, vb.2 1).
rule the roast, to be absolute master; ‘I am my lady’s cook, and king of the kitchen; where I rule the roast, command imperiously, and am a very tyrant in my office’, Nabbes, Microcosmus, iii. 1 (Tasting). The origin of the phrase is obscure; but it may easily have arisen, as here suggested, from the sway exercised by a master-cook; the same phrase is used of a cook by Earle, Microcosmographie, § 25 (ed. Arber, p. 46).
ruless, rule-less, unruly. Spenser, Virgil’s Gnat, 431.
ruly, orderly, law-abiding, amenable to law. Warner, Alb. England, bk. ix, ch. 40, st. 20.
rumbelo, rumbling, resounding; ‘Great bouncing rumbelo thund’ring Ratleth’, Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iv. 101. See [rombelow(e].
†rumming (?); ‘Much like a rumming streame’, Twyne, Aeneid x, 603 (L. torrentis aquae).
run at the ring; See [ring] (2).