ringer
/ˈɹɪŋə(ɹ)/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.06 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Someone who rings, especially a bell ringer.
noun
A crowbar.
noun
In the game of horseshoes, the event of the horseshoe landing around the pole.
Example Sentences
- "Pull, if ye never pull′d before; Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he."
- "It is difficult to classify them precisely, but, in roughly ascending order of productivity, we now recognise the purely chance observer, the locality regulars (now recognising that ‘time in’ eventually equals ‘rarity out’), the ringers (particularly when working in groups), the occasional tally-hunter (most of us, if we are honest), the full-time observatory workers (exhibiting the highest standards of discipline) and the growing group of full-blooded rarity collectors (self-styled ‘twitchers’, covering individually up to 30,000 miles in their annual pursuit of ‘lifers’)."
- "1964, Alec Bolton, Walkabout′s Australia, Walkabout magazine, page 107, The ringers are the stockmen on a station. The cattle pass through their hands before the drovers lift them and take them along the stock routes that lead to the killing pens in cities."
- "This vast holding is run by six ringers and six boys. A ringer is a qualified stationhand and a boy is a trainee. It takes four years for a boy to become a ringer."
- "Most people associated with the Australian beef industry believe the ringer′s skill of throwing cattle by the tail to be a practice that is purely Australian. There is ample evidence however, that it was practised in South and Central America long before it was developed here."
- "Click goes his shears; click, click, click. Wide are the blows, and his hand is moving quick, The ringer looks round, for he lost it by a blow, And he curses that old shearer with the bare belled ewe."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Australian usage
- Uncountable
- British usage
- Slang
- Informal