roast meat
Also roast-meat.
[f. roast ppl. a.]
1. Meat cooked by roasting.
| 1530 Palsgr. 264/1 Roste meate, rost. 1555 Eden Decades (Arb.) 75 They fownde nother man nor woman but rostemeate enowgh. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. Democritus to Rdr. 8 They serue to put vnder pies,..and keepe roste⁓meat from burning. 1662 Strype in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 178 We have roast meat, dinner and supper. 1704 J. Pitts Acc. Moham. 23 As for rost Meat, they cut the Flesh into small Pieces. 1765 Gray Shaks. 18 Better the roast meat from the fire to save. 1842 Combe Digestion 295 To give a weak..invalid a dinner of beefsteaks or roast-meat. |
| attrib. 1634 Sir T. Herbert Trav. 150 They [Persians] are no great Rost-meat-men. a 1693 Urquhart's Rabelais iii. xxxvii. 310 The Roast-meat Cookery of the Petit Chastelet, before the Cook-Shop. |
2. In
fig. phrases:
a. to make roast meat of, to burn (a person); to destroy or finish off.
| 1608 Shakes. Per. iv. ii. 26 She quickly pooped him, she made him roast-meat for worms. 1679 Ness Antichrist 111 They shall make rost-meat of the whore. a 1704 T. Brown Laconics Wks. 1711 IV. 7 For all his pretended Meekness, Calvin made Roast-meat of Servetus at Geneva, for his Unorthodoxy. |
b. to cry roast meat, to be foolish enough to announce to others a piece of private luck or good fortune. ?
Obs.| 1638 Sir T. Herbert Trav. (ed. 2) 209 At length the home-bred Chyna cryes roast-meat. 1673 Wycherley Gent. Dancing-Master i. ii, Hark you, madame, can't you fare well but you must cry ‘Roast meat’? 1687 Settle Refl. Dryden 41 It being something Drydenish, Illnatured and unjauntee.., to fair well, and cry Roastmeat, especially to a Husbands face. 1749 Fielding Tom Jones iv. v, To trumpet forth the praises of such a person, would, in the vulgar phrase, be crying Roast-meat, and calling in partakers of what they intended to apply solely to their own use. 1820 Lamb Elia i. Christ's Hosp., The foolish beast, not able to fare well but he must cry roast meat. |
† c. (See
quots.)
Obs.| 1674 Wood Life (O.H.S.) II. 296 He gave me roast meat and beat me with the spit. 1687 Good Advice 44 Certainly she..shows her self an ill Courtier..first to give him Roast-Meat, then to beat him with the Spit. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, To give one Rost-meat, and Beat him with the Spit, to do one a Curtesy, and Twit or Upbraid him with it. 1719 D'Urfey Pills III. 22. |
† 3. roast-meat attire or
roast meat clothes, holiday garb.
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Rost-meat-cloths, holiday-cloths. 1710 Brit. Apollo No. 73. 3/1 Dress'd in their Roast-Meat Attire, With Fob stor'd with Guineas. |