But if you know collies, you will think twice before you pooh-pooh it as rankly impossible.
Tidball stuffed the bowl with tobacco and was soon sending long clouds of rankly smelling smoke into the air.
I got down on my knees and, parting the grass which grew there rankly, I put my face in against the iron bars that closed it.
He was a rankly foolish young man, and he would have hugged his follies if this particular one would have permitted him.
The weeds and long grass grow so rankly in this warm climate that great watchfulness and care are required to keep them down.
It was damp and rankly odorous there in the darkness, and slimy things wriggled over the floor, brushing their ankles clammily.
Putrid fish have a charm for other species, and dead snakes, when rankly high, will attract still others.
The grass was higher than the heads of the travellers, and the vegetation everywhere was rankly luxuriant.
Yet his anger was not all for the man who had so rankly betrayed his trust, his bitterness was not all for the fact itself.
But it yielded an abundant crop of comedies, an undergrowth of rankly sprouting vegetation.
early 14c., "row, line series;" c.1400, a row of an army, from Old French renc, ranc "row, line" (Modern French rang), from Frankish *hring or some other Germanic source (cf. Old High German hring "circle, ring"), from Proto-Germanic *khrengaz "circle, ring" (see ring (n.1)).
Meaning "a social division, class of persons" is from early 15c. Meaning "high station in society" is from early 15c. Meaning "a relative position" is from c.1600.
Old English ranc "proud, overbearing, showy," from Proto-Germanic *rankaz (cf. Danish rank "right, upright," German rank "slender," Old Norse rakkr "straight, erect"), perhaps from PIE *reg- "to stretch, straighten" (see right (adj.)). In reference to plant growth, "vigorous, luxuriant, abundant, copious" it is recorded from c.1300. Related: Rankly; rankness.
Sense evolved in Middle English to "large and coarse" (c.1300), then, via notion of "excessive and unpleasant," to "corrupt, loathsome, foul" (mid-14c.), perhaps from influence of Middle French rance "rancid." In 17c. also "lewd, lustful."
Much used 16c. as a pejorative intensive (cf. rank folly). This is possibly the source of the verb meaning "to reveal another's guilt" (1929, underworld slang), and that of "to harass, abuse," 1934, U.S. black dialect, though this also may be from the role of the activity in establishing social hierarchy (from rank (n.)).
1570s, "arrange in lines;" 1590s, "put in order, classify; assign a rank to," from rank (n.). Related: Ranked; ranking.
[second sense used by 1960s teenagers in the preferred variant rank out, both as a verb phrase and a noun phrase]