Word.ws English Dictionary

ring-in

ring-in noun: a replacement made at the last minute, often in a sporting context.

Noun

ring-in (plural ring-ins)

  1. A replacement made at the last minute, often in a sporting context.
  2. A racehorse or greyhound fraudulently substituted for another in a race.
  3. An outsider.
    • "But I couldn't get into an underground contract party because I'm a ring-tail, or ring-in." That means an outsider, one not born in Broken Hill.1967, Elspeth Huxley, Their Shining Eldorado: A Journey through Australia, page 97
  4. A person pretending to be someone else; an imposter.

Forms of ring-in

pluralring-ins

Questions about ring-in

What does ring-in mean?
Ring-in means a replacement made at the last minute, often in a sporting context.
What part of speech is ring-in?
Ring-in is a noun.
What is the plural of ring-in?
The plural of ring-in is ring-ins.

Words near ring-in in the dictionary

  1. ring-giving
  2. ring-hall
  3. ring-halls
  4. ring-hoard
  5. ring-hoards
  6. ring-in
  7. ring-ins
  8. ring-light
  9. ring-lights
  10. ring-lock
  11. ring-locks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ring-in (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ring-in.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ring-in. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.