Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to thrash, to beat up.

1620		Rowlands Night Raven 29: Tom take thou a cudgel, and rib roast him.
1669		R. L’Estrange Fables of Barlandus (1692) CXLIII 186: I have been only Pinch’d in my Flesh, and Well Rib-Roasted sometimes under my Former Masters; but I’m In now for Skin and All.
1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) 134: Of which one man would cudgel four, / And four would ribrost half a score.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Pantagruelian Prognostications (1927) II 693: Some of them will be somewhat subject to be ribroasted and have a St. Andrew’s cross scored over their jobbernols.
1741		‘Capt. Samuel Cock’ Voyage to Lethe 50: Then rising he bows, Gives Thanks for the Blows [...] not a little boasting, Of the Glory and Honour of the Princely Rib-roasting.
1762		Smollett Sir Launcelot Greaves I 128: He knew he should be rib-roasted every day, and murdered at last.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 124: The Kentuckians was the rale grit, and know’d how tu ribroast an inemy.
1837		W. Irving Adventures of Capt. Bonneville II 19: [They were] happy to escape with no greater personal harm than a sound ribroasting.
1851		R.S. Surtees Young Tom Hall (1926) 164: Giving him a rib-roasting refresher with his flail of a whip.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.

2. of a wife, to scold her husband (with pun on rib n.¹ (1)).

1859

Matsell Vocabulum.