Definition needed: Rabous

[Greeny]

I've just started reading The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake, the author seems to delight in using extremely obscure words and I've often had to resort to a dictionary. However on page 36 of my copy I came across the sentence: "Lady Groan flung what remained of the grain across the room and the stonechat hopping from bed-rail to her head, took of again from that rabous landing ground with a flutter, circled twice around the room steering during his second circuit through the stalactites of shining wax, and landed on the floor beside the grain." I have checked both dictionaries which I have available: The Concise Oxford Dictionary, The Compact Oxford Dictionary and dictionary.com but drawn a blank. I am hoping someone with a far greater vocabulary than mine, or with access to a more exhaustive dictionary such as The Oxford English Dictionary (which has 23 volumes) may be able to supply a definition. I tried googling the word but got lots of matches on foreign language sites, which mostly seem to be referring to people with the surname Rabous. Bear in mind that earlier in the chapter in it revealed that Lady Groan is very fat so the adjective probably refers to this fact, or else to the nature of her hair. It is possible that Peake is using a non-English word, or that there has been a spelling mistake/typo, or indeed that he has simply made the word up himself. Anyone versed in etymology is invited to attempt to divine the word's meaning by that method.

 

[CurtSibling]

Keep in mind that Peake is fond of many nonsense words, so beloved of 19th century humour writers.

I know 'rabous' is a French word, however.
It is not listed in my Oxford dictionary...

 

[crystal]

dict.org helps (maybe?)

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No definitions found for "rabous", perhaps you mean:

web1913: Rabious Ramous
wn: ramous

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1 definition found for ramous
From WordNet (r) 2.0 :


ramous
adj : having branches [syn: branched, branching, ramose, ramate]

 

[Adso de Fimnu]

I'm afraid I can't help you (besides the silly guess that it's related to "rabid"), but I'm very pleased to see someone else is reading Peake. I thought I was the only one.
(By the way, calling them the Gormenghast books is a common (at least among the people who read them) mistake. If anything, call them the Titus books.

 

[Perfection]

Well doing a bit of data mining on google yielded mostly French adult sites, and French/English online dictionaries yeilded no result either.

 

[pboily]

It's not a modern French word according to my Larousse. Closest neighbours there are `rabougri' (small, puny) and `rabouter' (stick or glue two pieces of wood at the ends).
I've never heard the word nor have I seen it in print.

Maybe it's a word whose meaning will become clear as you continue reading; the author might use it again later in a more obvious context.

EDIT: if you figure it out, let us know. I'm curious.

 

[Greeny]

Thanks for the effort guys, I'm beginning to get the impression that he just made it up . BTW Adso de Fimnu: I referred to them as The Gormenghast Trilogy because that what it says on the front of the book (it's an omnibus edition) so blame the publishers .