1633 T. Adams Comm. 2 Peter iii. iii. 1153 For an hypocrite to decline open randing..and revels; it is no wonder.

1653 tr. F. Carmeni Nissena 40 [He] was the scandal of all Nicocia, though his ranting..made him [etc.].

1672 J. Gregory Let. 17 Jan. in S. P. Rigaud & S. J. Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men 17th Cent. (1841) (modernized text) II. 231 I am afraid ye will find these Cogitationes..to be but ranting.

1698 E. Settle Def. Dramatick Poetry 47 The Ranting of Tragedy, and the Fiction of Comedy.

1718 S. Keimer Brand Pluck'd from Burning 92 What Fightings, Roarings, Rantings was I witness to?

1754 S. Fielding & J. Collier Cry III. v. 153 Raving and ranting, however it may on the stage attain a thundering acclamation from the upper gallery, will never pass for soft sensibility of heart.

1786 R. Burns Poems 61 A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin..will send him..To your black pit.

1799 C. B. Brown Arthur Mervyn I. iii. 27 His speeches seemed, however, like the rantings of an actor, to be rehearsed by rote or for the sake of exercise.

1843 G. W. Le Fevre Life Trav. Physician III. iii. viii. 187 The scene..was nobly acted, without ranting.

1872 ‘M. Twain’ Roughing It xli. 285 He could not disturb me, with all his raving and ranting.

1924 Amer. Mercury Sept. 59/1 All their great organs of opinion..are filled with denunciations of the proceedings that went on in Washington during his brief reign, and of lofty ranting against his friends of the so-called Ohio Gang.

1964 C. Beaton Diary Apr. in Self Portrait with Friends (1979) xxvi. 371 All the actors in this company have a mastery of style, a reverence for the poetry and none of the ranting of the old ham.

2007 Philippine Daily Inquirer (Nexis) 2 Mar. No longer can the killings be dismissed as the wild rantings of a rabid Left.

1814 J. Austen Mansfield Park I. xiv. 276 There was some very good ranting ground in [the part of] Frederick. View more context for this quotation

1609 W. Rowley Search for Money (1842) 31 An audatious mouthing-randing-impudent..rascal.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor (1623) ii. i. 179 Looke where my ranting-Host [1602 ramping host] of the Garter comes:..hee lookes so merrily. View more context for this quotation

1656 J. Harrington Common-wealth of Oceana 143 When that same ranting fellow Alcibiades fell on Demagoging for the Sicilian War.

1706 G. Farquhar Recruiting Officer iv. i. 40 I fancy my Breeches wou'd become me as well as any ranting Fellow of 'um all.

1763 C. Johnstone Reverie (new ed.) I. x. 36 All the affected agitation and vehemence of voice and gesture of a ranting player.

1771 J. Wesley Wks. (1872) V. 149 Some of the wild, ranting Antinomians.

1839 H. Hallam Introd. Lit. Europe III. vi. 621 Marston is a tumid and ranting tragedian.

1881 Cent. Mag. Dec. 216/1 In 1715, a change came over him that brought him into contact with the ranting convulsionist, Frederick Rock..and others of the ‘awakened’.

1914 S. Lewis Our Mr. Wrenn iii. 46 I don't care so much for some of these ranting street-corner socialists.

1945 W. E. Henley Study in ‘Counter-decadence’ of 'Nineties i. 4 Byron the ranting egoist, fundamentally insincere of thought and expression.

1997 Empire Sept. 132/2 He was a ranting, wild-eyed, beardy, spooky old fish.

1650 R. Heath Epigrams ii. 56 in Clarastella Squire Huffe had got a vap'ring trick to talk High ranting words.

a1656 J. Ussher Ann. World (1658) vi. 470 [He] sent to Jonathan..a ranting challenge to meet him if he dared.

1686 J. Scott Christian Life: Pt. II II. vii. 1318 Flat impertinence or ranting Enthusiasm.

1713 Capt. Bland Northern Atalantis (ed. 2) 24 Thy Ranting Doings and Prophane Noise is very disagreable.

1797 R. Burdsall Mem. 9 When we came up to them, he, with a ranting speech, said to them, ‘you are all Methodists.’

1824 W. Scott Redgauntlet I. xi. 252 The ranting suppers in Redgauntlet Castle.

1894 ‘M. Twain’ Those Extraordinary Twins ii, in Pudd'nhead Wilson (new ed.) 333 ‘Bob Ridley’ is a common rackety slam-bang secular song, one of the rippingest and rantingest and noisiest there is.

1929 Oxf. Poetry 40 The ranting numbers do not pierce your ear.

1992 Independent 1 Apr. 18/4 Rousing supporters..with his searing, slightly ranting rhetoric, he brushes off allegations..as if they were irritating, but unimportant, flies.

1663 J. Heath Brief Chron. Intestine War (ed. 2) iii. 638 Van Trump..rantingly battered Dover with his whole Fleet.

1690 E. Warren Geologia (new ed.) vi. 125 Oil his virulent and sawcy tongue, to run more glibly and rantingly on.

1788 R. Burns in J. Johnson Scots Musical Museum II. 117 Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, Sae dauntingly gae'd he.

1895 Scribner's Mag. Oct. 450/2 Has not Scotia given her poet to the slack dependent of the gallows-tree, who so rantingly played his jig and wheeled it round in the shadow of that institution?

1981 Forbes (Nexis) 9 Nov. 25 Rantingly strident religious fundamentalists now literally rule a country—Iran.