rumbustious
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rumbustious
1775–80; probably variant of robustious
Explanation
That kid who's had a little too much candy and is bouncing off the walls? Just call him rumbustious, an old word meaning noisy and undisciplined. If you want to talk about someone who is unruly or just plain out of control, it's good to use an unruly word. In easygoing American English, we might refer to a rambunctious child, but before rambunctious there was rumbustious. That playful adjective goes all the way back to the late 18th century and still occasionally gets hauled out for comic effect, though using rambunctious will get you fewer odd looks.
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.
The rumbustious pirate, now looking at 50, with salt sprinkled through his red beard, sounds oddly subdued.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
As the well-read Schweitzer unobtrusively acknowledges, he borrowed Sherlock’s alternate 19th-century Britain from Joan Aiken’s rumbustious Dido Twite novels.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 6, 2021
The rumbustious suffragettes are relegated to small etchings on the new statue’s plinth, a marginalisation that hints at lingering unease with their methods.
From Economist ● Apr. 19, 2018
"No looking!" they might as well have added, as I come across one of American artist Nicole Eisenman's rumbustious, cartoonish paintings.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 30, 2014
I also found amusement in comparing his meek wooing, like that of an early Italian amorist, with his rumbustious theories as to marriage by capture and other primitive methods of bringing woman to heel.
From Jaffery by Locke, William John
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.
