ring

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   jewelry consisting of a circlet of precious metal worn on the finger and often set with jewels

   The musician had rings on every finger.

2. 2
   noun

   a characteristic sound

   it has the ring of sincerity

3. 3
   noun

   the sound of a bell ringing

   the distinctive ring of the church bell

4. 4
   noun

   a toroidal shape

   a ring of ships in the harbor

5. 5
   verb

   attach a ring to the foot of, in order to identify

   ring birds

6. 6
   noun

   A group of objects arranged in a circle.

   a ring of mushrooms growing in the wood

7. 7
   noun

   A long stripe of contrastive material, colour, etc, that encircles something.

   a ring of grime around the bathtub

8. 8
   noun

   Ellipsis of webring.

   Individuals looking to add their own homepage to a particular ring are, however, more or less at the mercy of the ringmaster, who often maintains a ring homepage listing its acceptance (or membership) policies and an index of its member sites.

Etymology

From Middle English ryng, from Old English hring (“ring, circle”), from Proto-West Germanic *hring, from Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“ring”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)krengʰ-, extended nasalized form of *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). Doublet of rank and rink, as well as indirectly range. Cognates * West Frisian ring * Low German Ring * Dutch ring * German Ring * Swedish ring * Finnish rengas More distantly cognate with Proto-Slavic *krǫgъ (whence Bulgarian кръг (krǎg), Polish krąg, Russian круг (krug)).