ripe
pronunciation
How to pronounce ripe in British English:
UK [raɪp]
How to pronounce ripe in American English:
US [raɪp]
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- Adjective:
- fully developed or matured and ready to be eaten or used
- fully prepared or eager
- most suitable or right for a particular purpose
- at the highest point of development especially in judgment or knowledge
- far along in time
Word Origin
- ripe
- ripe: [OE] Ripe is restricted to the West Germanic languages – it has relatives in German reif and Dutch rijp. Its antecedents are uncertain, but some have linked it with reap [OE], as if its underlying meaning is ‘ready for harvesting’. And reap itself may go back to an Indo- European base *rei- ‘tear, scratch’, and hence denote etymologically ‘strip’ the fruits, seeds, etc from plants.
- ripe (adj.)
- Old English ripe "ready for reaping, fit for eating, mature," from West Germanic *ripijaz (cognates: Old Saxon ripi, Middle Dutch ripe, Dutch rijp, Old High German rifi, German reif); related to Old English repan "to reap" (see reap). Meaning "ready for some action or effect" is from 1590s. Related: Ripely; ripeness.
Synonym
Example
- 1. They also need much less time to get ripe .
- 2. Agriculturalequipment is easily sabotaged . If ripe fields of grain are torched they burnquickly .
- 3. But these don 't look quite ripe .
- 4. But the time may not be ripe .
- 5. Conditions are ripe for solving the problem .