rumpus
Americannoun
-
rumpuses
plural
-
a noisy or violent disturbance; commotion; uproar.
There was a terrible rumpus going on upstairs.
-
a heated controversy.
a rumpus over the school-bond issue.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rumpus
First recorded in 1755–65; origin uncertain
Explanation
A rumpus is an uproar or a commotion. Setting a litter of excited puppies loose in a kindergarten classroom would be sure to cause a rumpus. While a rumpus can be loud and boisterous, like the rumpus underneath a piñata in the midst of a huge birthday party, others take the form of heated arguments. This kind of rumpus might occur during a political scandal, for example. Experts guess that the informal rumpus might come from the now-obsolete word robustious, which means "boisterous or noisy." In the mid-twentieth century, children's playrooms began to be called "rumpus rooms."
Vocabulary lists containing rumpus
Bridge to Terabithia
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Wayne State University's Word Warriors: a list of words to revive in your vocabulary
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My Side of the Mountain
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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:
Commenting on her appointment, Blanchett said she was "looking forward to beginning this creative rumpus".
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2026
Another rumpus at this World Cup concerns the installation of hydration breaks at the midway point of each half.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
As the characters in a Coen Brothers movie might say: What’s the rumpus?
From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2023
At the center of the rumpus is the confrontational enthusiast Nicholas Reeves, 66, who shares a home near Oxford, England, with a nameless house cat.
From New York Times ● Oct. 30, 2022
Billy was working on this letter in the basement rumpus room of his empty house.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
But then again, the NFL seems to specialize in off-field rumpuses.
From Time ● Jul. 28, 2015
Before he dies, Rivera may well add sculpture to his talents and triumphs, just as he may well get himself into more political rumpuses.
From Time Magazine Archive
Middle-class flight, a shriveled tax base and the usual urban rumpuses encourage St. Louis authorities to hire S. Jammu, a woman related to Indira Gandhi, to run its police department.
From Time Magazine Archive
As commander-in-chief of the rebels there emerged General "Lucky Juan" Alberto Barros, veteran of several Brazilian rumpuses.
From Time Magazine Archive
Under this homely term, you must know, he included all scenes, disturbances, rumpuses, passions; and expected all men, women, and things in Kent Villa to go smoothly—or go elsewhere.
From A Simpleton by Charles Reade
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.
