rowdy
Americannoun
-
rowdies
plural
adjective
-
rowdier,
comparative
-
rowdiest
superlative
-
rough and disorderly.
rowdy behavior at school.
-
Slang. great; very enjoyable, often with boisterous fun.
a rowdy time at the arcade with my best friends.
- Synonyms:
- obstreperous, unruly, boisterous
adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of rowdy
An Americanism dating back to 1810–20; perhaps from row 3
Explanation
If you’re rowdy, you’re loud and raucous. You’re disturbing the peace and somebody’s likely to ask you to quiet down. When your team wins, if you and your teammates celebrate by running through the streets screaming and wrestling each other on people’s lawns, you’re a rowdy bunch. You may be rough and obnoxious or just rowdy in a good-natured way. But you reserve the name rowdy for a cruel and brutal guy. Remember that bully in the seventh grade who kept taking your lunch money? He was a rowdy.
Vocabulary lists containing rowdy
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
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Schooled
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Frindle
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Baylors, who last went when she was 17, says it is "not as rowdy as people say it is, it's not like some battle zone or anything".
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
Mexico players and coaches were disappointed they could not give thousands of fans a win, instead falling 3-2 in a spirited match at rowdy Azteca Stadium.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026
Their gripes abound: Lanes aren’t properly oiled; machines break down regularly; leagues are assigned lanes right next to rowdy parties; food is exorbitantly priced.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
To survive, it’s trying a rowdy, adults-only solution.
From Slate ● Jun. 29, 2026
Some of the PSFs at Thurmond carried the noise machines around with them, blasting them at small, rowdy groups, or just to see a few kids squirm.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
The vast majority of fraternity members are not the drunk rowdies characterized by the movie “Animal House”; in fact, they are serious students and well-behaved gentlemen.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 29, 2021
To get out of trouble, a hotshot lawyer opts for community service coaching rowdies in peewee hockey.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 20, 2020
The other idols of those prelapsarian Mets, the rowdies who won it all in ’86, remain staples of New York media, their successes lionized and their sins reconstrued as locker-room foibles.
From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2020
The happy band of Muppets on "Sesame Street" has faced the sort of hot spotlight you might expect for the rowdies of "Jersey Shore."
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 14, 2012
I gathered up my skirts, pushed through Traft’s rowdies and hurried outside.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
He also warned the US hosts about the rowdier aspects of football support.
From BBC ● Jul. 3, 2026
But there was far less focus on the even rowdier world of “dating” shows aimed at young men.
From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2025
Mr. Paden didn’t mind — a crowd is a crowd — though sometimes he seemed to miss the rowdier old days.
From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2024
“There’s all the time in the world to partake in those activities during her rowdier, more up-tempo numbers but during her sacred ballads just shut up and listen,” a third commenter wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2023
The men are getting rowdier; more than half are on their feet.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Nebraska’s arena has become one of the rowdiest barns in the Big Ten.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026
Running back Travis Dye, who twice played in Corvallis with Oregon, said he thought that it was “one of the rowdiest crowds Oregon State has ever come with.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2022
The WestJet Flight Deck, a center field standing room area for the rowdiest fans, was reduced to a maximum of six socially distanced people at a time.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 31, 2021
She parred a hole with a PGA Tour player at the rowdiest hole in golf, shining in the moment instead of shrinking under the pressure.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 20, 2019
Among the rowdiest people of all were gangs of boys, teenaged and younger, who at last had their chance to defy authority.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
