Excerpt from the English Dialect Society's 1875 guide to West Somerset vernacular, available here.
RHINY [hruynee], adj. i. Thin; lean; hungry-looking. Jennings and Williams spell this rawny. Fat her ! a rhiny old thing, her've a-zeed too many Zindays, I b'lieve ; I count mid so well try to fat a yurdle. Said of a cow.
2. Miserly ; near ; close-fisted ; too stingy to be clean. Proper rhiny old fuller, 'tis a waeth aiteenpence to get a shillin out o' ee. The slouen and the careles man, the roinish nothing nice, To lodge in chamber comely deckt, are seldom suffred twice. — Tusser, 102, v. I.
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