“Ribey” Describes Someone Thin, Gaunt, or Lanky

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, my name’s Carl Forney. I live in Chicago.

Hi, Carl. Welcome to the program.

So, I was spending some time with my in-laws in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia over Thanksgiving, and we came across a word that I’d never heard before.

My wife and I grew up in Cincinnati, but the word was rivey.

But it was used to describe the musician Lyle Lovett.

Rivey? R-I-B something?

We went with R-Y-B-I-E.

And what does Ribie mean in your family?

So, like I said, it was used to describe Lyle Lovett.

That’s kind of where it got started.

It kind of means thin, gaunt, maybe even sickly.

But there was no definition, and we weren’t able to find anything on the Internet.

Okay, Ribie.

And, yeah, I think if you look Lyle Lovett up in some dictionaries, you might see Lyle Lovett.

Because he’s a really skinny guy.

And yeah, the word riby is a term that’s not all that uncommon in that part of the country, eastern Kentucky, West Virginia.

And it means a long-legged, thin person, a lanky person or somebody who’s really, really skinny.

Yeah.

And it probably goes back to the Scots language.

There’s a lot of Scots, Irish influence there in that part of the country.

And a ribe in the Scots language is like a tall, straggling cabbage plant, like one that’s failed to form properly.

Yeah, and so from that you get somebody who’s tall and emaciated, long-legged.

So a little ribe-y person.

Yeah, I can see that.

Okay, so it comes from Scots, a ribe.

Yeah, as far as we know.

A failed cabbage plant.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, that’s fascinating.

Yeah, I’m not aware of it being much more widespread than that.

No, it’s super rare.

But it’s a wonderful term, right?

A rabbi fella.

Yeah, someone from Ashland was familiar with the term, and the other folks were from Logan, West Virginia.

Yeah, Ashland is right there in Boyd County, there on the border, right?

Yeah, just kind of right in the middle of cold country.

And everybody’s, you know, the family, everybody’s been in that area for as long as anybody can remember.

Yeah, I have a friend from Ashland as well who says that some of his family says ribby.

You know, like somebody who’s got ribs.

Like they’re really, really thin, like ribby or ribby.

Interesting.

Yeah.

They were pretty adamant about the pronunciation.

The spelling was highly debated.

Yeah, well, in the Dictionary of American Regional English, the main entry is for R-I-B-E-Y.

Ribby.

Yeah.

Okay.

If you want to see just a little bit more about this, you can also look it up in the Dictionary of the Scots Language, which is in full online.

And it combines a couple really great historical works on the Scots language and Scots English.

Okay, definitely worth checking out.

Okay, well, thank you so much for your call, Carl.

Thanks for having me on.

Well, we know they talk a little different out your way.

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