rank

adj

1. (obsolete)Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.

   “rank grass”

   “rank weeds”

   “And, behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good.”

   “The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.”

2. (obsolete)Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.

   “rank land”

   “fow Sprat or Fullum Barley, which is the best for rank Land, because it doth not run ſo much to Straw”

3. (obsolete)Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.

   “The moon had spread over everything a thin layer of silver—over the rank grass, over the mud, upon the wall of matted vegetation standing higher than the wall of a temple […]”

4. (obsolete)Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.
5. (informal, obsolete)Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.
6. (obsolete)Strong; powerful; capable of acting or being used with great effect; energetic; vigorous; headstrong.

   “If Safford happens to be driving a "rank" horse, one that insists on getting away fast, he goes along with the rest, […]”

7. Having a very strong, bad taste or odor.

   “Your gym clothes are rank, bro – when'd you last wash 'em?”

   “Divers sea fowls taste rank of the fish on which they ordinarily feed.”

8. (emphatic, intensifier, negative)complete, unmitigated, utter.

   “rank treason”

   “rank nonsense”

   “I am a rank amateur as a wordsmith.”

   “England's domination of the first half was almost total, but they somehow contrived to allow Tunisia to raise themselves off the floor by virtue of rank carelessness from [Gareth] Southgate's side.”

   “Chelsea remain rank outsiders to retain their crown and they still lie 12 points adrift of United, but Ancelotti will regard this as a performance that supports his insistence that they can still have a say when the major prizes are handed out this season.”

9. (obsolete)lustful; lascivious

   “the ewes being rank, In end of autumn turned to the rams”

adv

1. (obsolete)Quickly, eagerly, impetuously.

   “The seely man seeing him ryde so rancke, / And ayme at him, fell flat to ground for feare […].”

   “That rides so rank and bends his lance so fell.”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A row of people or things organized in a grid pattern, often soldiers.

   “The front rank kneeled to reload while the second rank fired over their heads.”

   “The Musketeers being on both flancks, firſt firing let the Ranck ſtand, and fire every Ranck, paſſing through before his leader[…]”

   “Then there was no more cover, for they straggled out, not in ranks but clusters, from among orange trees and tall, flowering shrubs[…].”

2. (countable, uncountable)One of the eight horizontal lines of squares on a chessboard (i.e., those identified by a number).
3. (countable, uncountable)The value of a playing card.

   “The ranks are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace.”

4. (countable, uncountable)In a pipe organ, a set of pipes of a certain quality for which each pipe corresponds to one key or pedal.
5. (countable, uncountable)One's position in a list sorted by a shared property such as physical location, population, popularity, or quality.

   “Based on your test scores, you have a rank of 23.”

   “The fancy hotel was of the first rank.”

6. (countable, uncountable)The level of one's position in a class-based society.
7. (countable, uncountable)A category of people, such as those who share an occupation or belong to an organisation.

   “a membership drawn from the ranks of wealthy European businessmen”

   “Earlier this month police in Norfolk were called after five hives thought to contain around 60,000 bees and £600 worth of honey were taken. [...] Suspicions among beekeepers that the culprits come from their own ranks were underlined by the fact that a bee smoker was left at the scene by someone who presumably knew that it could be used to calm the insects before taking them.”

8. (countable, uncountable)A hierarchical level in an organization such as the military.

   “Private First Class (PFC) is the second-lowest rank in the Marines.”

   “He rose up through the ranks of the company, from mailroom clerk to CEO.”

9. (countable, uncountable)A level in a scientific taxonomy system.

   “Phylum is the taxonomic rank below kingdom and above class.”

10. (countable, uncountable)The dimensionality of an array (computing) or tensor.
11. (countable, uncountable)The maximal number of linearly independent columns (or rows) of a matrix.
12. (countable, uncountable)The maximum quantity of D-linearly independent elements of a module (over an integral domain D).
13. (countable, uncountable)The size of any basis of a given matroid.

verb

1. (transitive)To place abreast or in a line.

   “She [Diana] hath ſent (to plague vs) a huge ſauadge Boare, / Of an vn-meaſured height and magnitude. / […] / His briſtles poynted like a range of pikes / Ranck't on his backe: his foame ſnovves vvhere he feeds / His tuskes are like the Indian Oliphants.”

2. (intransitive)To have a ranking.

   “Their defense ranked third in the league.”

   “I vex my heart with fancies dim: / ⁠He still outstript me in the race; / ⁠It was but unity of place / That made me dream I rank’d with him.”

3. (transitive)To assign a suitable place in a class or order; to classify.

   “Ranking all things under general and special heads.”

   “Poets were ranked in the class of philosophers.”

   “Heresy [is] ranked with idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, murders, and other sins of the flesh.”

   “From time to time the coaches of the Lötschberg Railway itself, which in comfort and décor can rank with the finest in Europe today, travel far from the frontiers of Switzerland on through workings such as these.”

4. (US, transitive)To take the rank of; to outrank.

name

1. A surname.