Word of the Day

: September 27, 2020

rambunctious

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adjective ram-BUNK-shuss

What It Means

: marked by uncontrollable exuberance : unruly

rambunctious in Context

When the kids get a bit too rambunctious, the parents sit them down for a time-out.

"To calculate your pool's optimum size and depth, think about who will be using it. Will it be holding adults lounging while sipping mai tais or your child's rambunctious soccer team? If kids will be using the pool, how old and tall are they?" — Laura Daily, The Washington Post, 21 July 2020


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 that meant both "robust" and "boisterous."



Test Your Vocabulary

Fill in the blanks to complete a word for a boisterous band or parade: c _ _ l _ t _ _ m _.

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