or roil, royle, verb. (old).—To vex; to irritate; to disturb. Hence RILY = cross-grained; RILEMENT = ill temper. [Originally = to make turbid.] Fr. cavaler (or courir) sur le haricot.
1656–8. GURNALL, The Christian in Complete Armour, III. 296. There are dregs enough still within him to ROYLE and distemper his spirit.
1740. R. NORTH, Examen, 359. The lamb down stream ROILED the wolf’s water above. Ibid., Lives of the Norths, I. 415. He took a turn or two in his dining room and said nothing, by which I perceived that his spirits were very much ROILED.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxi. My feller critters … RILE up rough, along of my objecting to their selling Eden off too cheap.
1847. ROBB, Streaks of Squatter Life, 64. I gin to git RILEY. Ibid., 31. RILE him up, and sot his liver workin’.
1848. J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, i.
| We begin to think it ’s natur | |
| To take sarse an’ not be RILED. |
1849. THACKERAY, Pendennis, lxiv. What vexed and “RILED” him (to use his own expression) was the infernal indifference and cowardly ingratitude of Clavering.
1883. The Saturday Review, 13 Jan., 42, 2. It is not surprising that … they [his speeches] “RILED” some of Sir Charles’s political friends not a little. But it was perhaps a little surprising that the RILEMENT was so little manifested among Sir Charles’s audiences.
