rot! excl.1
a general excl. of irritation, disbelief, dismissal; usu. as rot it! rot ’em! rot on!
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Titus Andronicus V i: If thou wilt not [...] I’ll speak no more but ‘Vengeance rot you all!’. | |
| Virgil Travestie (1765) Bk I 44: Where once your what shall’s call’ums – (rot ’em! / It makes me mad I have forgot ’em). | |
| Lucky Chance II i: Rot your wine, d’ye think to pacify me with wine, Sir? | |
| (trans.) Plautus’s Rudens III vii: Rot me, if I don’t. | |
| Love Makes a Man II i: Convers’d with ’em! Aye, rot ’em, Aye! | |
| Beaux’ Strategem V iv: Rot the money! my wench is gone. | |
 | Wife’s Relief 2: Riot. Rot this Subject. | |
| Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 98: Yes, Rot her, now I recollect, I believe she did once lend me a Flannel one to be Flux’d in. | |
| Clarissa VII 215: Rot him for an idiot, and an oaf! I have no patience with the foolish duncical dog. | |
| High Life Below Stairs I ii: Rot it, I never save a Shilling. | |
| Homer Travestie (1764) I 123: Rot me! but Priam’s whoring race, / Unpunish’d shan’t maintain their place. | |
| Maid of Bath in Works (1799) II 212: Ah, rot your hypocritical face! | |
| Pettyfogger Dramatized II iii: Rot it; — I forgot to tell you, Sly’s turned thief. | |
| John Bull II iii: Psha! rot the workhouse! | |
| Yankey in England 49: Rot it all. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | City Looking Glass I i: ring.: How’s your wound? rav.: Where? on my heart? ring.: Rot your heart. – Your arm? | |
| Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 21 n.p.: So rot em I always am cheated. | |
| Oliver Twist (1966) 298: ‘Rot his bones!’ mumured the man, in a horrible passion. | |
| Handley Cross (1854) 528: Rot it, Bill! [...] what’s that rakish old nigger got his fisherman’s boots on for? | |
| ‘Lay of the Lovelorn’ in Bon Gaultier Ballads 17: Cuss the railways! rot, O rot the Three per Cents! | |
| Young Tom Hall (1926) 166: ‘Rot this hunting,’ growled Tom. | |
| Joaquin 131: Here they are leaving the woods [...] to meddle with us in the city, r-r-rot ’em! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | ‘Parliamentary Vade Mecum’ in Sydney Punch 14 Mar. 8/1: Interjections [...] Rot! | |
| Hoosier Mosaics 37: Bust the luck! Hang the luck! Rot the luck! | |
| Deacon Brodie I tab.III i: Oh, rot! I ain’t a parson, I ain’t. | |
| ‘Paris Inside Out’ in Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 30 6/2: ‘Oh, rot the dook [...] Is there to be a limit or not’. | |
| Poor Nellie I 32: ‘R.O.T!’ exclaimed George, emphatically. | |
| Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 4 Apr. 3/4: ‘Rot! rot! rot!’ ‘Oh, shut up!’. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 19 Nov. 5s/4: Rot the Nonconformist Conscience! / Strike the wowsers pink and red! |
In exclamations
a dismissive retort; a euph. for go to hell! under hell n.
| (con. 1954) Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun I i: Ah, rot off, Fritz. | |
| (con. 1954) Events While Guarding the Bofors Gun II ii: Ah, rot off. |
a general excl. of derision, dismissal, synon. with ‘to hell with you!’.
| ‘A Faithful Catalogue of our most Eminent Ninnies’ Works of Rochester, Roscommon, Dorset (1720) 31: How haughtily he cries, Page, fetch a Whore [...] Bring in that black-ey’d Wench; Woman, come near; / Rot you, you draggled Bitch, What is’t you fear? | |
| London Spy III 66: Hang you, Rot you, Sink you, Confound you. | |
| ‘Androboros’ in Meserve & Reardon Satiric Comedies (1969) 10: Rot ye, it was not your Cough that Carry’d it. | |
| Devil to Pay I iii: Rot you! | |
| Sl. Pastoral 9: Ah! rot ye, I see what it was you were at. | |
| Lancaster Gaz. 6 July n.p.: Rot thee! thou soft toad! | |
| ‘Uncle Sam’s Peculiarities’ Bentley’s Misc. IV 582: Rot ye! open de door yerself. | |
| ‘Bill’ Salt-Water Ballads 14: ’N’, rot ye, get a gait on ye, ye’re slower ’n’ a bloody snail! | |
| Cappy Ricks 303: Then he’ll turn the vessel back on our hands [...] rot him! |