Rank

RANK, noun [Heb.]

1. A row or line, applied to troops; a line of men standing abreast or side by side, and as opposed to file, a line running the length of a company, battalion or regiment. Keep your ranks; dress your ranks.

Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds in ranks and squadrons and right form of war.

2. Ranks, in the plural, the order of common soldiers; as, to reduce an officer to the ranks.

3. A row; a line of things, or things in a line; as a rank of osiers.

4. Degree; grade; in military affairs; as the rank of captain, colonel or general; the rank of vice-admiral.

5. Degree of elevation in civil life or station; the order of elevation or of subordination. We say, all ranks and orders of men; every man's dress and behavior should correspond with his rank; the highest and the lowest ranks of men or of other intelligent beings.

6. Class; order; division; any portion or number of things to which place, degree or order is assigned. Profligate men, by their vices, sometimes degrade themselves to the rank of brutes.

7. Degree of dignity, eminence or excellence; as a writer of the first rank; a lawyer of high rank.

These are all virtues of a meaner rank.

8. Dignity; high place or degree in the orders of men; as a man of rank.

Rank and file, the order of common soldiers. Ten officers and three hundred rank and file fell in the action.

To fill the ranks, to supply the whole number, or a competent number.

To take rank, to enjoy precedence, or to have the right of taking a higher place. In Great Britain, the king's sons take rank of all the other nobles.

RANK, adjective [Latin rancidus, from ranceo, to smell strong. The primary sense of the root is to advance, to shoot forward, to grow luxuriantly, whence the sense of strong, vigorous.]

1. Luxuriant in growth; being of vigorous growth; as rank grass; rank weeds.

Seven ears came up upon one stalk, rank and good. Genesis 41:1.

2. Causing vigorous growth; producing luxuriantly; very rich and fertile; as, land is rank.

3. Strong scented; as rank smelling rue.

4. Rancid; musty; as oil of a rank smell.

5. Inflamed with venereal appetite.

6. Strong to the taste; high tasted.

Divers sea fowls taste rank of the fish on which they feed.

7. Rampant; high grown; raised to a high degree; excessive; as rank pride; rank idolatry.

I do forgive thy rankest faults.

8. Gross; coarse.

9. Strong; clinching. Take rank hold. Hence,

10. Excessive; exceeding the actual value; as a rank modus in law.

To set rank, as the iron of a plane, to set it so as to take off a thick shaving.

RANK, verb transitive

1. To place abreast or in a line.

2. To place in a particular class, order or division.

Poets were ranked in the class of philosophers.

Heresy is ranked with idolatry and witchcraft.

3. To dispose methodically; to place in suitable order.

Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank your tribes?

Ranking all things under general and special heads.

RANK, verb intransitive

1. To be ranged; to be set or disposed; as in a particular degree, class, order or division.

Let that one article rank with the rest.

2. To be placed in a rank or ranks.

Go, rank in tribes, and quit the savage wood.

3. To have a certain grade or degree of elevation in the orders of civil or military life. He ranks with a major. He ranks with the first class of poets. He ranks high in public estimation.

RANK, the old preterit tense of ring. [Nearly obsolete.]