ripe

adj

1. Of a fruit, vegetable, seed, etc., ready for reaping or gathering; having attained perfection; mature.

   “ripe grain”

   “ripe apples”

   “So mayst thou live, till, like ripe fruit, thou drop / Into thy mother's lap.”

   “Plant breeding is always a numbers game.[…]The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […]. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new mutations, or they can be existing ones that are neutral—or are even selected against—in a wild population. A good example is mutations that disrupt seed dispersal, leaving the seeds on the heads long after they are ripe.”

2. Of a food, advanced to the state of fitness for use; mellow.

   “ripe cheese”

   “ripe wine”

3. (figuratively)Having attained its full development; mature; perfected.

   “He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one.”

   “And so may Place retain us still, ⁠And he the much-beloved again, ⁠A lord of large experience, train To riper growth the mind and will: […]”

   “She was a feature of that piety, but even at the ripe stage of acquaintance in which they occasionally arranged to meet at a concert or to go together to an exhibition she was not a feature of anything else.”

   “When you're ripe You'll bleed out of control”

4. (archaic)Of a sore, tumor, etc., maturated or suppurated; ready to discharge.
5. Ready for action or effect; prepared.

   “while things were just ripe for a war”

   “I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies.”

   “nor was the doom / of guilty deed, but of a hapless wight / to sudden madness stung, ere ripe to die, / therefore the Queen of Hades had not shorn / the fair tress from her forehead, nor assigned / that soul to Stygian dark.”

   “But the time is ripe for changes. There's a growing feeling. That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due”

6. (colloquial)Of a person, ready, willing, eager.

   “I'm starting somethin' myself. I'm ripe to fight. It's this country air!”

7. Like ripened fruit in ruddiness and plumpness.

   “Those happy smilets, / That played on her ripe lip.”

   “He looked back once at the waving hands, the mother's glowing, ripe cheeks.”

8. (obsolete)Intoxicated.

   “Alonso: And Trinculo is reeling-ripe: where should they / Find this grand liquor that hath gilded them? / How cam'st thou in this pickle?”

9. Of a conflict between parties, having developed to a stage where the conflict may be reviewed by a court of law.

   “Problems emerge in judging whether a case is ripe, however, when contested general agency directives are issued that are not aimed at specific parties.”

10. Smelly: having a disagreeable odor.

    “His Majesty [a purple emperor butterfly] has rather peculiar tastes for so elegant a being. You just hang a piece of decidedly ripe meat anywhere near.”

    “Dolores, giving her a bath yesterday, said she was a bit ripe under the armpits.”

11. (not-comparable, proscribed)Rife

    “The current state of the tech industry is ripe with danger and poses an existential threat, he believes.”

noun

1. A fruit or vegetable which has ripened.

   “When he realized that the ripes would not make it back to Selma, Zemurray offered a free bunch of bananas to any telegraph operator who notified local grocers that he was coming through with a shipment of bananas.”

2. The bank of a river.
3. (uncountable)A tuberculosis treatment regimen consisting of rifampicin (R), isoniazid (I), pyrazinamide (P), and ethambutol (E).

verb

1. (intransitive)To ripen or mature.

   “[…] he answer'd, "Do not so; / Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio, / But stay the very riping of the time; / […]”

2. (obsolete, transitive)To search; to rummage.

name

1. A village in Chalvington with Ripe parish, Wealden district, East Sussex, England (OS grid ref TQ5110).