rambunctious
adjective
Did you know?
Rambunctious first appeared in print in the early half of the 19th century, at a time when the fast-growing United States was forging its identity and indulging in a fashion for colorful new coinages suggestive of the young nation's optimism and exuberance. Rip-roaring, scalawag, scrumptious, hornswoggle, and skedaddle are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did Americans alter the largely British rumbustious because it sounded, well, British? That could be. Rumbustious, which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s just after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was probably based on robustious, a much older adjective meaning both "robust" and "boisterous."
Examples of rambunctious in a Sentence
Ben Adler, USA Today, 2 Nov. 2025
From there, Olympian water polo player Ashleigh Johnson assumes the roles of beloved figures such as Prince, Tommie Smith, Serena Williams, and Amanda Gorman as Public Enemy’s members trade bars over a rambunctious guitar loop.
—Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 29 Oct. 2025
Kitchen ran into a rambunctious group of rhesus macaques who decided to cause waves during her quiet kayak ride by cannonballing from the trees of Silver Springs State Park into the clear waters below.
—Kelli Bender, PEOPLE, 24 Oct. 2025
The first dog that left Pecos in a plane was a sweet, rambunctious stray that Wright called Felicia.
—Rachel Monroe, New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for rambunctious
Cite this Entry
“Rambunctious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rambunctious. Accessed 3 Nov. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
rambunctious
adjective
Share