rank#

rank adj 1 Rank, rampant mean growing or increasing at an immoderate rate.

Rank applies primarily to vegetation and implies vigorous, luxuriant, and often unchecked or excessive growth

{

behold, seven ears of corn came up upon one stalk, rank and good— Gen 41:5

}

{

its garden was . . . rank, too thickly crowded with trees and bushes and plants— West

}

The term is common in metaphoric extension

{

weed your better judgments of all opinion that grows rank in them— Shak.

}

Rampant is more widely applicable than rank; it implies rapid, often unrestrained or wild, spreading and is frequently applicable not only to what literally grows but to what extends or increases by contagion or diffusion

{

it grieved him to see ignorance and impiety so rampant— Fuller d. 1661

}

{

that curiosity which is so rampant, as a rule, in an Indian village— Kipling

}

{

rumor ran rampant ... the other day— Breit

}

Analogous words: *coarse, gross, vulgar: exuberant, *profuse, lavish, luxuriant

2 fusty, musty, rancid, *malodorous, stinking, fetid, noisome, putrid

Analogous words: dank, humid (see WET): *offensive, loathsome, repulsive: decomposed, decayed, spoiled (see DECAY)

Antonyms: balmy

3 *flagrant, glaring, gross

Analogous words: conspicuous, outstanding, *noticeable: foul, filthy, squalid, nasty (see DIRTY): *outrageous, heinous, atrocious, monstrous

rank n *line, row, file, echelon, tier

rank vb *class, grade, rate, graduate, gradate

Analogous words: *order, arrange: classify, *assort, sort: divide, *separate