riper


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ripe

 (rīp)
adj. rip·er, rip·est
1. Fully developed; mature: ripe peaches.
2. Sufficiently advanced in preparation or aging to be used or eaten: ripe cheese.
3. Thoroughly matured, as by study or experience; seasoned: ripe judgment.
4. Advanced in years: the ripe age of 90.
5. Fully prepared to do or undergo something; ready: "By 1965 the republic was ripe for a coup" (Alex Shoumatoff).
6. Sufficiently advanced; opportune: The time is ripe for great societal changes.
7. Sensuous and full: ripe lips.
8. Coarse or indecent; vulgar: the comic's ripe language.
9. Emitting a foul odor: "the dirt and stench ... the mountains of ripe bushmeat in every camp" (Bryan Mealer).

[Middle English, from Old English rīpe.]

ripe′ly adv.
ripe′ness n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

riper

(ˈraɪpə)
n
(Historical Terms) obsolete Scot a thief
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
References in classic literature ?
Worms of the riper grave unhid By any kindly coffin lid, Obscene and shameless to the light, Seethe in insatiate appetite, Through putrid offal; while above The hissing blow-fly seeks his love, Whose offspring, supping where they supt, Consume corruption twice corrupt.
Such then is the proper answer to that censure: for it must be admitted, that in some cases nothing can prevent music being attended, to a certain degree, with the bad effects which are ascribed to it; it is therefore clear that the learning of it should never prevent the business of riper years; nor render the body effeminate, and unfit for the business of war or the state; but it should be practised by the young, judged of by the old.
These wires were for private service only, as yet, and must be kept private until a riper day should come.
Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.
She looked young; yet, had I been required to name her exact age, I should have been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her figure might have suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied expression of face seemed the indication of riper years.
As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood, so it was again now with the love of my riper age!
They had recently seen a chosen army from that country, which, reverencing as a mother, they had blindly believed invincible--an army led by a chief who had been selected from a crowd of trained warriors, for his rare military endowments, disgracefully routed by a handful of French and Indians, and only saved from annihilation by the coolness and spirit of a Virginian boy, whose riper fame has since diffused itself, with the steady influence of moral truth, to the uttermost confines of Christendom.* A wide frontier had been laid naked by this unexpected disaster, and more substantial evils were preceded by a thousand fanciful and imaginary dangers.
Then one of the officers, who - of a riper age than the others - had till this time remained behind, and had said nothing, advanced.
You must tell it, sir, in a sound Latinity when your scholarship is riper; or in English if you please, though for my part I prefer the stronger tongue.
These irregularities of judgment, I imagine, are found even in riper minds than Mary Garth's: our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and demerit, which none of us ever saw.
And in those years he composed many copies of verses, which might well become a riper age."* We can imagine to ourselves the silence of the house, when all the Puritan household had been long abed.
Now is he born of parents base of stock, In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes: At riper years, to Wittenberg he went, Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.