See ?cut
and specify breaks
(and maybe labels
).
x$bins <- cut(x$rank, breaks=c(0,4,10,15), labels=c("1-4","5-10","10-15"))
x
# rank name info bins
# 1 1 steve red 1-4
# 2 3 joe blue 1-4
# 3 6 john green 5-10
# 4 3 liz yellow 1-4
# 5 15 jon pink 10-15