Fibrocystic breasts are composed of tissue that feels ropy, lumpy or bumpy in texture.

CNN: Fibrocystic breasts

In any event, putting in fresh capital may now be more pressing than pulling out ropy assets.

ECONOMIST: Expect more give and less take from the mortgage rescue

By late 2005, this battle had pushed rates for ropy borrowers down to a little over 7%.

ECONOMIST: Mortgage lending

His Fed has cut rates with the economy looking ropy but also with bankers and politicians trying to bully him.

ECONOMIST: The world economy

Mr. Maillot's choreography favored ropy or flamelike undulations for arms and hands, as well as randomly blown breaths as if such exhaled air stirred equally arbitrary gestures in an adjacent dancer.

WSJ: Gambling on Les Ballets de Monte Carlo | Dance Review by Robert Greskovic

Few realised just how ropy the banks were.

ECONOMIST: Ireland��s former finance minister dies, at just 52

Road and rail links west to Dakar, in Senegal, are ropy, so Mali's lorry drivers face a grinding round trip of 2, 000km (1, 200 miles) or more through Benin or Togo to get any goods on to the world market.

ECONOMIST: Mali

Infrastructure is still ropy.

ECONOMIST: India looks east

China looks increasingly ropy.

ECONOMIST: Storm clouds from Brazil