Collins English-English Dictionary

rank [ræŋk]

1. 1. n a position, esp an official one, within a social organization, esp the armed forces

   the rank of captain

2. 2. n high social or other standing; status

3. 3. n a line or row of people or things

4. 4. n the position of an item in any ordering or sequence

5. 5. n [Brit] a place where taxis wait to be hired

6. 6. n a line of soldiers drawn up abreast of each other - Compare file

7. 7. n any of the eight horizontal rows of squares on a chessboard

8. 8. n (in systemic grammar) one of the units of description of which a grammar is composed. Ranks of English grammar are sentence, clause, group, word, and morpheme

9. 9. n [music] a set of organ pipes controlled by the same stop

10. 10. n [maths] (of a matrix) the largest number of linearly independent rows or columns; the number of rows (or columns) of the nonzero determinant of greatest order that can be extracted from the matrix

11. 11. vt. [tr] to arrange (people or things) in rows or lines; range

12. 12. vt. to accord or be accorded a specific position in an organization, society, or group

13. 13. vt. [tr] to array (a set of objects) as a sequence, esp in terms of the natural arithmetic ordering of some measure of the elements

    to rank students by their test scores

14. 14. vi. [intr] to be important; rate

    money ranks low in her order of priorities

15. 15. vi. [chiefly US] to take precedence or surpass in rank

    the colonel ranks at this camp

16. 16. vi. [Etymology] C16: from Old French ranc row, rank, of Germanic origin; compare Old High German hring circle

rank [ræŋk]

1. 1. adj showing vigorous and profuse growth

   rank weeds

2. 2. adj highly offensive or disagreeable, esp in smell or taste

3. 3. adj [prenominal] complete or absolute; utter

   a rank outsider

4. 4. adj coarse or vulgar; gross

   his language was rank

5. 5. adj [Etymology] Old English ranc straight, noble; related to Old Norse rakkr upright, Dutch, Swedish rank tall and thin, weak