subs. (colloquial).—1. Blood; CLARET (q.v.). Hence RUBY-FACE = ‘a very red face’ (B. E., GROSE); whence (2) RUBY = a GROG-BLOSSOM (q.v.).
c. 16[?]. Roxburghe Ballads [Brit. Mus., C 20, f. 7, 214], ‘The Little Barly-Corne,’ 11.
| It will inrich the palest face, | |
| And with RUBIES it adorne. |
1839. W. H. AINSWORTH, Jack Sheppard, II. v. Jolly nose, the bright RUBIES that garnish thy tip.
1860. Chambers’s Journal, xiii. 348. The fluid of which Harvey demonstrated the circulation in the human body, he speaks of as ‘claret,’ or ‘carmine,’ or ‘RUBY.’
1886–9. MARSHALL [‘Pomes,’ 49], Honest Bill. You’d be sure to nark the RUBY round his gilt.
1888. Sporting Life, 11 Dec. Saunders stopped a flush right-hander with his organ of smell, the RUBY duly making its appearance.
