rackety (adj.) = making a loud noise, and therefore disreputable (pronounced ‘rak-i-tee’) from the English words, racket + - y
e.g. The Chelsea Hotel in New York for many years epitomised its neighbourhood’s rackety reputation
raddled (adj.) = (of a person) old- or tired-looking from the English word ‘ruddle’ (which later evolved into the word ‘raddle’), a red pigment used in make-up; an old- or tired-looking person needed more ‘raddle’ to enliven his appearance – and hence ended up well and truly ‘raddled’
e.g. After the birth of his first child and the ensuing sleeplessness, he began to look raddled
(a) rake’s progress (set phrase) = a gradual deterioration, owing to self-indulgence for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Amy Winehouse’s rake’s progress began when she quit school early to join a jazz band
‘A Rake’s Progress’ was the title given by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth to a series of eight paintings that he produced in 1732–33.
These eight paintings – which currently reside in the Soane Museum, London – depict the decline into destitution of Tom Rakewell, the son of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money whoring and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately the lunatic asylum of Bedlam.
Over time, the term evolved to cover any example of debauched living that resulted in a downfall.
rapier-tongued (set phrase) = having a very sharp tongue (‘rapier’ is pronounced ‘rey-pee-er’) from rapier: a sword used for thrusting that is thin and sharp (and thus the kind of sword that most resembles a tongue) + tongue
e.g. In the film Wall Street, Michael Douglas played a rapier-tongued financier who famously says, ‘Greed, for lack of a better word, is good’
reactionary (noun) = someone opposed to social liberalisation; literally, a ‘reactionary’ is ‘someone who holds reactionary political views that mean they want a return to society’s previous state (as a reaction against the current state)’ for full explanation, see box below
e.g. To his supporters, the Pope is a traditionalist; to his opponents, he is a reactionary
It was the French Revolution (1789–99) that gave us the word ‘reactionary’, which derives from the French word ‘réactionnaire’, denoting ‘a movement advocating a return to a previous condition of affairs’.
The word ‘réactionnaire’ decribed those conservative forces – especially the Roman Catholic Church – that, believing national government to be the sole domain of the Church and of the state, opposed the social and economic changes brought by the revolution.
People who were ‘réactionnaire’ idealised the time before the French Revolution, when economies were mainly agrarian, society was ruled by a landed aristocracy headed by a hereditary king and the Roman Catholic Church was society’s moral compass. Today the term ‘reactionary’ describes anyone wanting a return to more traditional values, who is opposed to ‘progressive’ liberal forces.
réclame (noun) = public acclaim (pronounced ‘rey-klahm’) from the Old French, réclamer: to reclaim; from the Latin, reclamare: to cry out
e.g. The public sees politicians as being driven by a love of réclame, rather than by any desire to do good for society
recrudescence (noun) = a fresh outbreak (pronounced ‘ree-kroo-des-uhns’) from the Latin, recrudescere: to become raw again, from re-: again + crudus: raw
e.g. When he bumped into his ex-wife in the frozen peas aisle of the supermarket, he experienced an unwelcome recrudescence of feeling
red in tooth and claw (set phrase) = (of nature) merciless for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Professor Richard Dawkins has said, ‘…the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw…we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organise our societies.’
The phrase ‘red in tooth and claw’ is a reference to the violent side of the natural world, and specifically to those moments – often featured on TV nature programmes – when predatory animals unsentimentally attack and devour their prey, turning their teeth and claws red (with blood) as a result.
It is from the poem ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ (1849) that the phrase comes; the poem’s author was Lord Tennyson – formerly Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. He penned the ode as a tribute to his best friend Arthur Hallam, also a poet and a fellow student at Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson’s sister, but who died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage before the marriage could take place. This episode prompted Tennyson to write his poem, in order to express the conflict between a loving God and nature that was ‘red in tooth and claw’ (i.e. that had so cruelly snatched away his friend): a disparity that was a frequent concern of all Victorian thinkers. Here is the exact quote:
‘Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed’
(Incidentally, in the same poem, Tennyson also gave us the memorable lines: ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’.)
a red-letter day (set phrase) = a day that is pleasantly memorable deriving from the medieval religious practice of printing holy days in the calendar in red ink
e.g. Alfred Hitchcock looked back on his first occasion on set as a fully fledged director as a red-letter day
to redact (verb) = (of a text) to edit for publication (pronounced ‘ri-dakt’) from the Latin, redact-, the past participle stem of redigere: to reduce
e.g. Sometimes a judge will allow sensitive information in a case (involving national security, for example) to be redacted, before being released to the public
redoubtable (adj.) = (of an opponent) formidable (pronounced ‘ri-dou-tuh-buhl’) from the French, redouter: to fear, from re-: (expressing intensive force) + douter: to doubt
e.g. Osama bin Laden was, for many years, a redoubtable foe for the West
reductionist / reductive (adj.) = (derogatory in tone) presenting a complex problem in a crudely simple way reductionist is from the English words reduction + -ist; and reductive is from the Latin, reducere: to reduce
e.g. Journalist Charles Spencer has said of Lucian Freud’s paintings, ‘Living, breathing people are represented as little more than lumps of meat in a butcher’s shop. It is a singularly reductive view of humanity.’
redux (adj. going after the noun) = revived (pronounced ‘ri-duhks’) from the Latin, reducere: to bring back
e.g. Critics say that Golden Dawn – the far-right political party that has gained a large share of the vote in Greece – is the Third Reich redux
refractory (adj.) = stubborn, and impossible to manage (pronounced ‘ri-frak-tuh-ree’) from the Latin, refractarius: stubborn, the past participle of refringere: to break up (since, in science, a ‘refractory material’ means one that is hard to fuse together, and so, to manage)
e.g. The little girl was thrown to the ground by the refractory pony
regnant (adj.) = dominant (pronounced ‘reg-nuhnt’) from the Latin, regnant-: reigning, from the verb, regnare: to rule
e.g. Amongst the liberal intelligentsia, the regnant view is that all Christians are deluded fools
to reify (something abstract) (verb) = to make (something abstract) into a concrete thing (pronounced ‘ree-uh-fahy’) from the Latin, res, re-: thing + -fy
e.g. For Hitchcock, his leading lady Grace Kelly was elegance reified
to rend your raiment over an event (set phrase) = to tear your clothes (as a sign of extreme distress) over an event (‘raiment’ is pronounced ‘rey-muhnt’) from the English words, to rend: to tear into pieces + raiment: clothing (a shortening of the now obsolete word, ‘arrayment’: ‘dress’)
e.g. Fifty years ago, a divorce ruined your life; but nowadays most people don’t rend their raiment over their marriage breaking up
to rescind (an agreement) (verb) = to revoke (an agreement) (pronounced ‘ri-sind’) from the Latin, rescindere, from re-: (expressing intensive force) + scindere: to divide
e.g. After he punched her in the face, she rescinded his invitation to her birthday party
to resile from (an agreement) (verb) = to abandon (an agreement) (‘resile’ is pronounced ‘ri-zahyl’) from the French, resilir, from the Latin, resilire: to recoil, from re-: back + salire: to jump
e.g. Critics of Germany say the country must resile from its economic puritanism and allow more handouts to its neighbours in order to save the euro
restitution of (something) (noun) = restoration of (something) to its orginal condition or owner (pronounced ‘res-ti-too-shuhn’) from the Latin, restituere: to restore, from re-: again + statuere: to establish
e.g. Even if they privately support its return, most European political leaders are too politically savvy to call for the restitution of the death penalty
restive (adj.) = restless from the French, restif, -ive, from rester: to remain, ultimately from the Latin, restare: to remain; the original sense was ‘to remain still’, but then the connotation of ‘unmanageable’ evolved via the notion of a horse remaining still in defiance, refusing to move forward
e.g. Her friend had warned her about the seven-year itch, and, sure enough, shortly after she’d celebrated her seventh wedding anniversary, she grew restive
revenant (noun) = a person who has returned, often supposedly from the dead (pronounced ‘rev-uh-nuhnt’) from the French, revenant: coming back, the present participle of revenir: to come back
e.g. I returned to the city where I was born, but no one recognised me there, so I walked around unnoticed, a lonely revenant
revisionist (adj.) = (of a person) revising one’s opinions about a previously accepted point of view (with the implication of ‘selling out’) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. If a Hollywood film were to cast Jesus as the villain and Pilate as the hero, religious groups would object to such a revisionist take on the Bible
The phrase ‘revisionist’ is a perjorative term originally used in the 19th century by supporters of Karl Marx, to describe socialist writers such as Eduard Bernstein. Marx’s supporters were irked by Bernstein because he sought to revise Marx’s ideas about the means of transition to socialism, claiming that a socialist society could be achieved through peaceful and gradual methods rather than by Marx’s chosen method of a violent revolution. ‘Revisionist’, therefore, was a term used of Bernstein to imply he was a traitor to the Marxist cause.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the term cropped up again; this time it was used by Stalinists who affixed the ‘revisionist’ label to those communists who advocated the production of consumer goods (rather than of heavy industry), and who encouraged democratic, non-communist reforms (instead of promoting a communist revolution).
Since then, ‘revisionism’ has been a charge levelled by one group at any other group who is seen as going against a premise originally shared by both groups.
to roister (verb) = to enjoy oneself in a noisy manner (pronounced ‘roi-ster’) from the French, rustre: ruffian, variant of ruste, from rusticus: rustic
e.g. After the stockmarket shuts at 4.30 p.m., traders gather in the City’s bars to roister
roman à clef (set phrase) = a novel in which real people and situations appear but with made up names (pronounced ‘raw-mah na kley’) from the French, roman à clef: novel with a key (the key being the one that unlocks the relationship between the non-fictional and the fictional worlds, between the real people depicted and the characters in the novel; this key is often implied by the author via literary devices within the novel)
e.g. Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926) – a barely disguised account of Hemingway’s life as a writer in Paris, and his 1925 voyage to Spain with several known personalities – is a classic roman à clef
Rorschach test (noun) = (in psychology) a test in which a person is presented with various ink blots on paper, and asked what shapes he or she sees in them (the answers reflect what is on the person’s mind) (‘Rorschach’ is pronounced ‘roar-shak’) deriving from the name of the test’s creator, Hermann Rorschach (1884–1922), a Swiss psychiatrist
e.g. She pointed out a cloud above us; to me, it looked like a soft meringue, but she said she saw a menacing shark in it. This unwittingly undertaken Rorschach test was the first sign to me of her fearful personality
roseate (adj.) = optimistic; ‘roseate’ literally means ‘rose-coloured’ (and hence ‘optimistic’, as per the expression ‘rose-tinted glasses’) (pronounced ‘roh-zee-it’) from the Latin, roseus: rosy, from rosa: rose + - ate
e.g. Pessimists say there is a gulf between the roseate ideals of marriage and its prosaic day-to-day reality
(to be) the Rosetta Stone of (a field of knowledge)
(to be) the Rosetta Stone of (a field of knowledge) (set phrase) = to be the essential key to (a new field of knowledge) for full explanation, see box below
e.g. Scientists are desperate to find the ‘missing-link’ fossil that links man to ape (known as the ‘hominoid gap’), which would be the Rosetta Stone of evolution
The ‘Rosetta Stone’ refers to an actual stone bearing this name, the most visited object in the British Museum in London. Inscribed on this stone – discovered in 1799 in Rosetta, a place in Egypt near the Nile – is a decree issued by King Ptolemy V of Egypt in 196 BC.
Significantly, this same decree from the king was written out fully both in Ancient Greek and in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Before the discovery of the ‘Rosetta Stone’, no one had been able to make sense of Egyptian hieroglyphs – but Ancient Greek had never been a problem. So, for the first time, academics could suddenly understand Egyptian hieroglyphs (since they could make sense of the corresponding Greek text – which contained exactly the same meaning as that in the hieroglyphs – as a key).
And suddenly they could also understand all the other early records of Ancient Egyptian civilisation and literature (that had also been written out in hieroglyphs) – such as ‘The Pyramid Texts’, which were reserved only for the Pharaoh’s eyes, and which contained spells for allowing him to fly and for reanimating his body after death. Today the term ‘Rosetta Stone’ is used to refer to an essential clue that illuminates a whole field of knowledge.
to cross the Rubicon (set phrase) = to go past the point of no return for full explanation, see box below
e.g. When Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to cross the Rubicon and become fully involved in World War II
The phrase ‘to cross the Rubicon’ refers to an important river in Italy, the Rubicon, which, during the Roman Republic (509–27 BC), was the designated boundary separating Italy proper (controlled by Rome and the Senate) from the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul (equivalent to the northernmost part of modern-day Italy).
When Julius Caesar – fresh from his conquest of the whole of Gaul – boldly crossed this Rubicon river and entered Italy with his army in 49 BC, he went past the point of no return: this crossing was a clear sign that he had declared war on Rome, for Roman generals (such as Caesar) were strictly forbidden by Rome to lead an army into Italy proper.
After three years of bloody fighting, Caesar ended up winning the ensuing civil war within the Roman Republic, which led eventually to the establishment of the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 476) by Caesar’s adopted heir Octavius (rather than by Caesar himself, who was assassinated by Brutus five years after his crossing of the Rubicon).
rubicund (adj.) = red-faced (pronounced ‘roo-bi-kuhnd’) from the Latin, rubicundus, from rubere: to be red
e.g. In film adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson is traditionally portrayed as a good-natured, rubicund companion to the great detective
rubric (noun) = a guideline (pronounced ‘roo-brik’) from the Latin, rubrica: red; originally, ‘rubric’ referred in religious books to rules regarding conduct during a religious ceremony – these rules were written out in red, to make them stand out from the prayers making up the rest of the book
e.g. Although it seems to make little difference to the country’s finances, politicians periodically unveil a new rubric for economic growth
ruminative (adj.) = thinking deeply about a topic (pronounced ‘roo-muh-nit-iv’) from the Latin, ruminat- : chewed over, from ruminari: to chew over (like a cow)
e.g. When news broke of JFK’s assassination, most people fell into a ruminative silence
runnel (noun) = a small stream from the Middle English, rynel: a small stream, ultimately from the Old English, rinnan: to run
e.g. As he cocked his gun and pushed open the door to the bank, he felt a runnel of sweat coursing down his back