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Run a Rig (To)

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To play a trick, to suffer a sportive trick. Thus, John Gilpin, when he set out, “little thought of running such a rig” as he suffered. Florio gives as a meaning of rig, “the tricks of a wanton;” hence frolicsome and deceptive tricks. The rig of a ship means the way it is rigged, hence its appearance; and, as pirates deceive by changing the rig of their vessel, so rig came to mean a trick to deceive, a trick, a frolicsome deception.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Rule the Roost (To)
Rum
Ruminate
Rumolt
Rump-fed
Rump Parliament
Rumpelstilzchen [Rumple-stilts-skin]
Rumping Dozen
Run
Run Amuck
Run a Rig (To)
Run Riot (To)
Run Thin (To)
Run a Man Down (To)
Run of the House (The)
Runs
Runs may Read (He that)
Running
Running Footman
Running Leather
Running Thursday