> as lemmas

1614 T. Adams Diuells Banket vi. 331 Some ring the Changes of opinions.

1670 J. Eachard Grounds Contempt of Clergy 62 They shall only ring you over a few changes upon the three words: crying, Faith, Hope and Charity: Hope, Faith and Charity; and so on.

1711 J. Addison Spectator No. 60. ¶2 The Poet rung the Chymes upon these eight several Words.

1763 J. Brown Diss. Poetry & Music 66 Commentators and Critics ring Changes on their single, double, oblique, right-handed, and left-handed Flutes.

1835 R. Southey Doctor III. 106 He could..have astounded him by ringing changes upon Almugea, Cazimi, [etc.].

1845 B. Disraeli Sybil III. vi. i. 157 Ring the changes on great measures and great experiments till it is time to go down and make a House.

1865 B. Harte Arcadia Revisited in Writings (1914) XX. 313 And I that same dyspeptic youth Who rang the chimes on ‘sooth’ and ‘truth’.

1872 ‘G. Eliot’ Middlemarch III. v. xlv. 41 He had caught the words ‘expectant method’, and rang chimes on this and other learned phrases to accompany the assurance that Lydgate ‘knew a thing or two more than the rest of the doctors’.

1921 Amer. Woman Jan. 9/1 A clever hostess will take pains to devise new shapes, effective color contrasts, and unusual fillings..instead of ringing the changes perpetually on plain chicken, ham, and cream-cheese-walnut paste.

1951 G. Heyer Quiet Gentleman xviii. 267 The Dowager harangued him for half an hour, ringing all the changes between scolding, dictating, and pleading.

1993 R. F. Capon Myst. Christ vi. 101 True enough, he does ring the chimes on ‘everlasting fire reserved for the devil and his angels’, and ‘everlasting punishment’.

2007 L. Nordmann et al. Professional Beauty Therapy (ed. 3) xiii. 441 The beauty of this type of art is that it is attractive when only clear polish (or none!) is worn, and the client can then ring the changes by applying a coloured enamel over the top.