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Ring

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ring¹

  • /ɹɪŋ/ US, UK
  • /ˈɹɪŋɡ/ Midlands, Northern England

Sounds like wring · Rhymes with -ɪŋ

Where it comes from

From Middle English ryng, from Old English hring (“ring, circle”), from Proto-West Germanic *hring, from Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“ring”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)krengʰ-, extended nasalized form of *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Doublet of rank and rink, as well as indirectly range.

Cognates

* West Frisian ring

* Low German Ring

* Dutch ring

* German Ring

* Swedish ring

* Finnish rengas

More distantly cognate with Proto-Slavic *krǫgъ (whence Bulgarian кръг (krăg), Polish krąg, Russian круг (krug)).

noun rings

  1. physical A circumscribing object, (roughly) circular and hollow, looking like an annual ring, earring, finger ring etc.
  2. physical A round piece of (precious) metal worn around the finger or through the ear, nose, etc. His brother gifted him a ring for the engagement.
  3. UK, physical A bird band, a round piece of metal put around a bird's leg used for identification and studies of migration.
  4. UK, physical A burner on a kitchen stove, hob, or cooktop.
  5. physical A piece of food in the shape of a ring. onion rings
  6. physical In a jack plug, the connector between the tip and the sleeve.
  7. physical, vulgar The rectum, anus, or anal sphincters. Lick my ring!
  8. historical, physical An instrument, formerly used for taking the sun's altitude, consisting of a brass ring suspended by a swivel, with a hole at one side through which a solar ray entering indicated the altitude on the graduated inner surface opposite.
  9. physical A flexible band partly or wholly encircling the spore cases of ferns.
  10. physical A circular group of people or objects. a ring of mushrooms growing in the wood
  11. physical A formation of various pieces of material orbiting around a planet or young star. Soon Voyager will cross through the plane of Neptune's rings. This dusty, debris-laden zone is the most perilous passage. Most of the ring dust is the size of cigarette-smoke particles.
  12. UK, physical A large circular prehistoric stone construction such as Stonehenge.
  13. A long stripe of contrastive material, colour, etc, that encircles something. a ring of grime around the bathtub
  14. Internet, abbreviation, ellipsis Ellipsis of webring.webring Individuals looking to add their own homepage to a particular ring are, however, more or less at the mercy of the ringmaster, who often maintains a ring homepage listing its acceptance (or membership) policies and an index of its member sites.
  15. A place where some sports or exhibitions take place; notably a circular or comparable arena, such as a boxing ring or a circus ring; hence the field of a political contest. Place me, O, place me in the dusty ring, / Where youthful charioteers contend for glory.
  16. The open space in front of a racecourse stand, used for betting purposes.
  17. An exclusive group of people, usually involving some unethical or illegal practices. a crime ring; a prostitution ring; a bidding ring (at an auction sale)
  18. A group of atoms linked by bonds to form a closed chain in a molecule. a benzene ring
  19. A planar geometrical figure included between two concentric circles.
  20. A diacritical mark in the shape of a hollow circle placed above or under the letter; a kroužek.
  21. historical An old English measure of corn equal to the coomb or half a quarter. The ring is common in the Huntingdonshire accounts of Ramsey Abbey. It was equal to half a quarter, i.e., is identical with the coomb of the eastern counties
  22. A hierarchical level of privilege in a computer system, usually at hardware level, used to protect data and functionality (also protection ring). Kernel Mode processes run in ring 0, and User Mode processes run in ring 3.
  23. Either of the pair of clamps used to hold a telescopic sight to a rifle.
  24. The twenty-fifth Lenormand card.
  25. A network topology where connected devices form a circular data channel. All computers on the ring can see every message, and there are no collisions, and a single point of failure will occur if any part of the ring breaks.

verb rings · ringing · ringed

  1. transitive To enclose or surround. The inner city was ringed with dingy industrial areas.
  2. figuratively, transitive To make an incision around; to girdle; to cut away a circular tract of bark from a tree in order to kill it. They ringed the trees to make the clearing easier next year.
  3. transitive To attach a ring to, especially for identification. We managed to ring 22 birds this morning.
  4. transitive To surround or fit with a ring, or as if with a ring. to ring a pig’s snout
  5. To rise in the air spirally. […] how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing / In his ecstacy!
  6. transitive To steal and change the identity of (cars) in order to resell them. A. Woodley, Trio: 3 short stories Gabe said that as Derry had only caught part of the conversation, it's possible that they were discussing a film, it was bad enough that they'd unwittingly been brought into ringing cars, adding drugs into it was far more than either of them could ever be comfortabl
  7. Australia, transitive To ride around (a group of animals, especially cattle) to keep them milling in one place; hence (intransitive), to work as a drover, to muster cattle. ‘I was ringing for your dad out there at Haddon Hill the year you was born. It was a good year for calves.’

ring²

  • /ɹɪŋ/ US, UK
  • /ˈɹɪŋɡ/ Midlands, Northern England

Sounds like wring · Rhymes with -ɪŋ

Where it comes from

From Middle English ryngen, from Old English hrinġan (“to ring”), from Proto-West Germanic *hringijan, from Proto-Germanic *hringijaną (“to ring”), of imitative origin. Cognate with Dutch ringen (“to ring”), Danish ringe (“to ring”), Swedish ringa (“to ring”), Faroese ringja (“to ring up, telephone”), Icelandic hringja (“to ring”), West Frisian ringelje (“to ring”), Dutch rinkelen (“to ring, jingle”), Faroese ringla (“to tinkle, jingle”).

noun rings

  1. The resonant sound of a bell, or a sound resembling it. The church bell's ring could be heard the length of the valley.
  2. figuratively A pleasant or correct sound. The name has a nice ring to it.
  3. figuratively A sound or appearance that is characteristic of something. Her statements in court had a ring of falsehood.
  4. colloquial A telephone call. I’ll give you a ring when the plane lands.
  5. Any loud sound; the sound of numerous voices; a sound continued, repeated, or reverberated. the ring of acclamations fresh in his ears
  6. A chime, or set of bells harmonically tuned. St Mary's has a ring of eight bells.

verb rings · ringing · rang · rung

  1. intransitive Of a bell, etc., to produce a resonant sound. The bells were ringing in the town.
  2. transitive To make (a bell, etc.) produce a resonant sound. The deliveryman rang the doorbell to drop off a parcel.
  3. transitive To produce (a sound) by ringing. They rang a Christmas carol on their handbells.
  4. figuratively, intransitive To produce the sound of a bell or a similar sound. Whose mobile phone is ringing?
  5. figuratively, intransitive Of something spoken or written, to appear to be, to seem, to sound. That does not ring true.
  6. Australia, New Zealand, UK, colloquial, transitive To telephone (someone). I will ring you when we arrive.
  7. intransitive to resound, reverberate, echo. […] And many an old philosophy ⁠On Argive heights divinely sang, ⁠And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady.
  8. intransitive To produce music with bells. Four Bells admit Twenty-four changes in Ringing
  9. To ring up (enter into a cash register or till) The checkout girl rang it into his total, and he paid the bill.
  10. dated To repeat often, loudly, or earnestly.

ring³

  • /ɹɪŋ/ US, UK
  • /ˈɹɪŋɡ/ Midlands, Northern England

Sounds like wring · Rhymes with -ɪŋ

Where it comes from

From a shortening of German Zahlring (“ring of numbers”), coined by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1892. Apparently first used in English in 1930, E. T. Bell, “Rings whose elements are ideals,” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society.

noun rings

  1. An algebraic structure which consists of a set with two binary operations: an additive operation and a multiplicative operation, such that the set is an abelian group under the additive operation, a monoid under the multiplicative operation, and such that the multiplicative operation is distributive with respect to the additive operation. The set of integers, #92;mathbb#123;Z#125;, is the prototypical ring.
  2. An algebraic structure as above, but only required to be a semigroup under the multiplicative operation, that is, there need not be a multiplicative identity element. The definition of ring without unity allows, for instance, the set 2#92;mathbb#123;Z#125; of even integers to be a ring.

ring⁴

  • /ɹɪŋ/ US, UK
  • /ˈɹɪŋɡ/ Midlands, Northern England

Sounds like wring · Rhymes with -ɪŋ

noun rings

  1. A family of sets that is closed under finite unions and set-theoretic differences.
  2. A family of sets closed under finite union and finite intersection.

Ring⁵

proper noun

  1. A surname originating as an occupation for a maker of rings as jewelry or as in harness.
  2. A parish of County Waterford, Ireland.
  3. An unincorporated community in the town of Nekimi, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States.

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