1550 T. Nicolls tr. Thucydides Hist. Peloponnesian War vii. xiv. f. C96 It semed well vnto them that wythout faighting in rancked battaille, in suffrynge by suche meanes their ennemyes, they shulde haue them without doubte at their wyll and pleasure.

1600 E. Wilkinson Thameseidos i. sig. Aiij^v High flying Cranes, by whose orderly flight, Mars first was taught in rancked squadrons fight.

1679 J. Dryden Troilus & Cressida ii. i. 13 Has he not met a thousand lifted Swords, Of thick rank'd Grecians, and shall one affright him?

1763 C. Smart Song to David 20 Beauteous the multitudes in mail, Rank'd arms and crested heads.

1786 R. Burns in Scots Mag. Oct. 769/2 And ranked plagues their numbers tell In dreadfu' raw.

1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. II. ii. vi. 132 The ranked Regiments hear it in their meadow.

1883 ‘M. Twain’ Life on Mississippi xxii. 160 His close-ranked merchandise stretched..along the banks.

1932 W. Faulkner Light in August i. 23 She traverses the ranked battery of maneyes and enters the store.

1972 G. M. Brown Greenvoe (1976) iii. 87 At last he has filled every bottle. They glint on the bench, the ranked armies of summer ready to march into the snows and gales for the relief of bewintered man.

2000 S. Heighton Shadow Boxer ii. i. 120 His mother and Everson had met him at the airport and driven him into Cairo through the tight-ranked dreary projects of Nasr City.

1657 J. Harington Hist. Polindor & Flostella (ed. 3) iii. 158 Grown since withdrawn, retir'd (howere, for place First-rank'd Arcadian Peer, as for wealths blaze, Honour'd, belov'd to boot).

1709 D. Manley Secret Mem. (ed. 2) I. 110 Because she..did not burst out into a Laughter at his Jests, he concluded her mad; and yet this is the first rank'd Wit of the Age.

1839 Times 28 Mar. 6/2 The formation of a high-ranked landed gentry was the intention of Lord Cornwallis.

1907 Drapers' Company Res. Mem. (Biometric Ser.) 4 36 The actual size of organ corresponding to a bracket rank may differ widely from the size really belonging to the ranked organ.

1931 Biometrika 23 396 The mean interval between any two individuals in a ranked series.

1954 Southwestern Jrnl. Anthropol. 10 76 The most important man in the community is the chief of the highest ranking house in the top-ranked sib.

1973 W. Soyinka Season of Anomy xii. 255 He..returned to be absorbed into the highly ranked post of a prospecting engineer.

1995 Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey) 22 Oct. v. 4/3 The 11th-ranked Wildcats qualified for a bowl berth.

1648 H. Hexham Groot Woorden-boeck Vergarst, Ranked, or Growne mustie.