rumple
Americanverb (used with object)
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rumples,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rumpled,
past participle, past
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rumpling
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
rumples,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rumpled,
past participle, past
-
rumpling
present participle
noun
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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rumplesimple
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rumplessimple
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have rumpledperfect
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has rumpledperfect
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am rumplingprogressive
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are rumplingprogressive
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is rumplingprogressive
-
have been rumplingperfect progressive
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has been rumplingperfect progressive
Past
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rumpledsimple
-
had rumpledperfect
-
was rumplingprogressive
-
were rumplingprogressive
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had been rumplingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rumple
1595–1605; < Dutch rompelen (v.), rompel (noun)
Explanation
To mess something up or disarrange it is to rumple it. Even if you make your bed neatly in the morning, your dog might jump up and rumple it as soon as you leave for school. When you take something smooth or neat and make it wrinkled or crumpled, you rumple it. A dad might have the annoying habit of always wanting to rumple his son's perfectly combed hair, for example. And if you fall asleep in your tuxedo, you'll rumple it too. Experts think that rumple started as a variation on the now-obsolete verb rimple, "to wrinkle."
Vocabulary lists containing rumple
My Brother Sam is Dead
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The Thing About Jellyfish
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The Night Diary
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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:
On a blue two-seater sofa, a tiny head and bony freckled hands emerge from the loose rumple of a red and black Chinese silk shirt.
From Time ● Oct. 10, 2016
In Sonnet 73, “That time of year thou mayest in me behold,” there is a cognitive rumple as eventful as any I know in poetry.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 23, 2016
His hair is frequently rumpled, but there’s not enough of it to rumple in the fashion of Donald Trump.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 21, 2016
Would Dan’s fear of roller coasters really cause a major rumple in their relationship?
From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2015
He’d give Bill a playful cuff and rumple his hair.
From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
The MacDonald Ice rumples where the penguins now live is dynamic and unpredictable, and Antarctic seasonal sea ice levels are close to record lows.
From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2024
A discarded poster, grotesquely distorted by rumples and rain.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 22, 2023
This magical contraption is small, heats up in about a minute, and can easily smooth out everything from everyday rumples to tough wrinkles.
From Slate ● Nov. 29, 2018
She is sitting in her El Segundo studio, her hair a short shock of platinum blond that stands to attention when she rumples it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 27, 2015
The rumples in Papa- Nnukwu’s belly did not seem so many now, and his navel rose higher, still enclosed between folds of skin.
From "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
And when one of us finally came padding down the wooden stairs, sleepy and rumpled and operating on a schedule she would never have personally endorsed, there was no reproach.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026
Vanessa Bonet of the installation art group Dedo Vabo watched over a mission-control monitor deck, as the buzzing craft climbed into room full of braying hippos in rumpled suits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2026
In an Indian city, an unassuming, slightly rumpled comedian walks into the spotlight for the first time in months.
From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2026
In this case, I can’t see how ironing out a few wrinkles and covering a rumpled duvet with a digital bedspread materially misrepresents your home.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 3, 2026
When I came home, she was still there, her work clothes stretched on the bed, rumpled and forgotten.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
As different groupings of dancers come and go, marking the hornpipe music with some maritime motions, rumpling Baroque grace with hip bumps and air kisses, other dancers pass in front or behind.
From New York Times ● Sep. 26, 2021
Having done so, he turned tail, only for the carpet to sabotage his dignity by rumpling and tipping him on to his arse.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 6, 2019
It does if your idea of smooth is flexible enough to include the mild rumpling it exhibits when you wash and hang it to dry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2016
I’d eventually make it to the top, where I’d sit on a bench and watch the sun settle into an unmade bed of mountains rumpling toward the horizon.
From New York Times ● Sep. 5, 2013
There was a clearing directly in front of her, at the center of which an enormous tree thrust up, its thick roots rumpling the ground ten feet around in every direction.
From "Tuck Everlasting" by Natalie Babbit
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.
