Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also rib-roasting) a beating [pun].

1576		G. Gascoigne Steele Glas Epistle dedication: Though the skorneful do mocke me for a time, yet in the ende I hope to giue them al a rybbe to roste for their paynes .
1595		Maroccus Extaticus To the Reader A3: A flat robberie [...] such a peece of filching as is punishable with ribroast among the turne spits at pie corner.
1664		S. Butler Hudibras Pt II canto 1 line 247–8: Departs not meanly proud, and boasting / Of his magnificent rib-roasting.
1824		Dublin Morn. Register 8 Dec. 3/4: Heigh ho! said Rowley. But this frog got a rib roasting in a trice.
1834		Public Ledger (London) 12 July 4/2: She gave the donkey a sound rib roasting.
1842		Newry Teleg. 7 May 4/3: Love is laughable too, when it procures its votaries a ducking or a rib roasting.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 294: He now sits sideways, and proceeds to give him a good rib-roasting in the old postboy style.
1861		Bell’s Life in London 1 Sept. 7/5: Although Dan showed no marks of punishment about rhe phiz [...] the rib roasting [...] began to tell on him.
1887		St Paul Dly Globe (MN) 11 Aug. 6/3: Bufflao Bill’s rib-roasting and Chauncey Depew’s rib-tickling doubtless went down well together.
1891		Dundee People’s Jrnl 20 June 9/3: Clinch upon clinch followed, the round ending in favour of Kilrain, despite the rib roasting which he got.

2. a wife’s scolding her husband .

1640

R. Brathwaite Ar’t Asleepe, Husband? 4: Shee was made of a Crookt Subject, a Rib: and out of her crooked disposition [...] shee will not stick to tyrannize over a sheepish husband, and give him rib-roast.

3. (US) to target verbally, either as criticism or humorously, also attrib.

1885		New Iberia Exp. (LA) 7 Feb. 4/2: An Editor Caned [...] after which he arises, ‘Not meanly proud but boasting of his magnificent rib-roasting’.
1897		Cecil Whig (Elkton, MD) 13 Feb. 4/2: [headline] Wellington Gives McComas a Thorough Rib-Roasting.
1903		Mitchell Capital (SD) 10 July 12/3: I must say I miss those rib-roasting dispatches you used to fire inn about the railroads.

4. (US Und.) an infant, a young child.

1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).