Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 5.pdf/369

 3. (costers').—A sovereign; half-a-rainbow = ten shillings: see Rhino.

Rainbow-chase, subs. phr. (common).—A run after a dream; a wild-goose chase (q.v.). [From the folk-story of the pot of gold found where the two points of a rainbow touch the earth.]

1886. St. James's Gaz., 2 June, 10. A fact which had led Mr. Rylands off a rainbow-chase after a visionary Chancellorship.

Rain-napper, subs. phr. (old).—An umbrella; a mush (q.v.).

1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, iii. 4. My hat and rain-napper there!

Rainy- (or wet-) day, subs. phr. (common).—Hard times; whence, to lay up for a rainy day = to provide against necessity or distress.—Grose (1785).

d.1626. Andrews Sermons [Ang. Cath. Lib. (1841-3), ii. 346]. This they caught as an advantage we see, and laid it up for a rainy day, and three years after, out they came with it.

1662. Fuller, Worthies, xi. Ergo, saith the Miser, part with nothing, but keep all against a wet day.

1836. Everett, Orations, 1. 285 The man whose honest industry just gives him a competence exerts himself that he may have something against a rainy day

1885. Evening Standard, 23 Oct. They must in prosperous times put by something for a rainy day.

Raise, subs. (colloquial).—An improvement in conditions.

1848. Ruxton, Far West, 19. If we don't make a raise afore long, I wouldn't say so.

1886. Phil. Times, 6 Ap. No further difficulty is anticipated in making permanent the raise of the freight blockade in this city.

Verb. (old: now American colloquial).—To rear: of human beings, crops and cattle.

1597. Shakspeare, Richard III., v. 3, 247. A bloody tyrant and a homicide; One raised in blood.

1744. Math. Bishop [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 164. A child is raised (bred up) this is still an American phrase].

1768. Franklin, Letter to J. Alleyne, 9 Aug. By these early marriages we are blest with more children; and every mother suckling and nursing her own child, more of them are raised.

1851. Allin, Home Ballads, 22. Rhody has raised the biggest man, Connecticut, Tom Thumb.

1869. Stowe, Oldtown Folks, 98. Miss Asphyxia had talked of takin' a child from the poor-house, and so raisin' her own help.

1887. Lippincott's, August, 398. I was born and raised 'way down in the little village of Unity, Maine.

1890. Literary World, 31 Jan., 102, 2. She was raised in a good family as a nurse and seamstress.

See Bead; bill; bobbery; bristles; Cain; dander; dash; dead; devil; hair; hatchet; hell; market; mischief; muss; ned; organ; racket; roof; row; rumpus; wind.

Raise-mountain, subs. phr. (old).—A braggart.

Rake (Rakehell, Rakehellonian, or Rakeshame), subs. (old: now recognised).—A disreputable person; a blackguard, esp. a whoremonger; 'one so bad as to be found only by raking hell, or one so reckless as to rake hell' (Century): also 'Rake hell and skin the devil, and you'll not find such another.'—Harman (1573); Cotgrave (1611, s.v. garnement); B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785). Also, as verb.