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. (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.

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

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