Pronunciations
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/ˈɹɪŋə(ɹ)/
Noun
Someone who rings, especially a bell ringer.
- Examples
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Pull, if ye never pull′d before; Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
A crowbar.
Noun
A person who places rings or bands on a bird's leg.
- Examples
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More examples (1)
It is difficult to classify them precisely, but, in roughly ascending order of productivity, we now recognise the purely chance observer, the locality regulars (now recognising that ‘time in’ eventually equals ‘rarity out’), the ringers (particularly when working in groups), the occasional tally-hunter (most of us, if we are honest), the full-time observatory workers (exhibiting the highest standards of discipline) and the growing group of full-blooded rarity collectors (self-styled ‘twitchers’, covering individually up to 30,000 miles in their annual pursuit of ‘lifers’).
A stockman, a cowboy.
Usage- Australia
- Examples
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More examples (3)
1964, Alec Bolton, Walkabout′s Australia, Walkabout magazine, page 107, The ringers are the stockmen on a station. The cattle pass through their hands before the drovers lift them and take them along the stock routes that lead to the killing pens in cities.
This vast holding is run by six ringers and six boys. A ringer is a qualified stationhand and a boy is a trainee. It takes four years for a boy to become a ringer.
Most people associated with the Australian beef industry believe the ringer′s skill of throwing cattle by the tail to be a practice that is purely Australian. There is ample evidence however, that it was practised in South and Central America long before it was developed here.
In the game of horseshoes, the event of the horseshoe landing around the pole.
A game of marbles where players attempt to knock each other's marbles out of a ring drawn on the ground.
Usage- Uncountable
Noun
A top performer.
Usage- UK usage
- dialectal
The champion shearer of a shearing shed.
Usage- Australia
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Click goes his shears; click, click, click. Wide are the blows, and his hand is moving quick, The ringer looks round, for he lost it by a blow, And he curses that old shearer with the bare belled ewe.
Noun
Any person or thing that is fraudulent; a fake or impostor.
Usage- Slang
A person highly proficient at a skill or sport who is brought in, often fraudulently, to supplement a team.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Near-synonym: hustler
More examples (1)
In this next clip from the security camera, we see that the rube flashing his wad of cash thinks he'll win, but he doesn't realize that the guy in the gray shirt is a ringer.
A horse fraudulently entered in a race using the name of another horse.
A fraudulently cloned (or cut-and-shut) motor vehicle.
Usage- UK usage
- Slang
- Examples
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I had heard early on in my career about 'ringers': cars that were stolen and cloned, but it was 1993 before I was to experience this first-hand.
Noun
A person, animal, or entity which resembles another so closely as to be taken for the other; a look-alike (now usually in the phrase dead ringer).
- Synonyms
- Examples
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That man over there is an exact ringer for my father!
More examples (1)
I mean, he knows we never handed off the briefcase, but he never asked for it back. The million bucks was never in the briefcase! The asshole was hoping that they would kill her! You threw out a ringer for a ringer!
Noun
An officer having the specified number of rings (denoting rank) on the uniform sleeve.
Usage- UK usage
- In compounds
- Informal
- Examples
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A group of naval one- and two-ringers were chatting by the office door with a few ratings, complete with kit-bags and oilskins.
The senior officer of the escort was an RN two and a half ringer who had a reputation of being one of the best.
A ringer T-shirt.
- Examples
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[…] shabby baseball caps, faded and worn-out T-shirts, ringers and polos with artificially aged hems […]
The shirts were light blue heather ringers with royal blue trim on the necks and sleeves.
Noun
a person who rings church bells (as for summoning the congregation)
- Synonyms
a person who is almost identical to another
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a contestant entered in a competition under false pretenses
(horseshoes) the successful throw of a horseshoe or quoit so as to encircle a stake or peg
- Broader terms