rummy
1 Americannoun
noun
-
rummies
plural
adjective
adjective
noun
adjective
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rummy1
An Americanism dating back to 1905–10; perhaps special use of rummy 3
Origin of rummy2
First recorded in 1840–45; rum 1 + -y 1
Origin of rummy3
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:
In his Jeeves stories, Bertie Wooster is briefly employed by a magazine called Milady's Boudoir, which was housed "in one of those rummy streets in the Covent Garden neighbourhood".
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2025
During tough negotiations over a child care bill with Bob Packwood of Oregon, he challenged her to a game of gin rummy.
From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2023
Roberta later would take her own three children on similar long educational road trips, as well as regularly touring the world with Rowena while they continued a gin rummy game that reportedly lasted for decades.
From Reuters ● Oct. 12, 2020
Hanks then told fans that Wilson had beat him in six straight hands of gin rummy.
From Fox News ● Mar. 28, 2020
This was used as a kitchen and relaxation room, where the Company could read or gossip or play Mah- Jongg, the game with tiles that is something like the demons’ card game of gin rummy.
From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep
The rummies are down on you, Mr. Strong, you have been so outspoken against them; and your lecture in the hall last week has made them mad, I tell you.
From The Crucifixion of Philip Strong by Charles Monroe Sheldon
I was walkin' in my sleep as nice as you please when those rummies lep' on me.
From Going Some by Rex Ellingwood Beach
Yes, Mr. Strong, and I tell you the rummies will almost hold a prayer-meeting when you leave Milton.
From The Crucifixion of Philip Strong by Charles Monroe Sheldon
No, not in dead mummies, indeed, but in living rummies.
From In the Sweet Dry and Dry by Bart Haley
Half of each was composed of rummies and the other half of anti-rummies, after the moral and political share-and-share-alike fashion of the frontier town of the period.
From The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
It is the way he talks," said MacIan, almost indifferently; "but he says rummier things than that.
From The Ball and the Cross by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
It was—and that on'y made it all the rummier!
From The Brass Bottle A Farcical Fantastic Play in Four Acts by F. Anstey
And a lot I did think as I drove back to Nice, I do assure you—for a rummier game I had never been engaged in, and that's the truth, upon my word and honour.
From The Man Who Drove the Car by Sir Max Pemberton
But, good Lord! life for me has been made up of even rummier things than that, and now I’ve got to the end of it.
From The Red Derelict by Bertram Mitford
“That ’ere ’ouse, guv’nor, is the rummiest I ever was in.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
“One of the rummiest meetings I ever had,” said he, smiling thoughtfully at the recollection, “was in the Swazie country in ’85.
From The Outspan Tales of South Africa by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick
It was the rummiest weather I ever see.
From Tom Finch's Monkey and How he Dined with the Admiral by Anonymous
It's a rum case," said the superintendent, rising, "and if you don't mind my saying so, Mr. Beale, you're one of the rummiest men that figure in it.
From The Green Rust by Edgar Wallace
“It was the rummiest vehicle you ever saw,” he heard Jones say; “a cart, I assure you—nothing more or less, and drawn by the very scraggiest scarecrow of a blind horse.”
From St. Winifred's, or The World of School by H. C. (Harold C.) Earnshaw
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.
