rabble rouser
rabble rouser noun: someone or something that tends to inspire mobs; something controversial or provocative.
Noun
rabble rouser (plural rabble rousers)
- Someone or something that tends to inspire mobs; something controversial or provocative.
- They proceed steadily from studies of human character and destiny, the proper business of the novelist, to mere outpourings of social and economic panaceas, the proper business of leader writers, chautauquas rabble-rousers and hedge politicians.1917, H. L. Mencken, “Joseph Conrad”, in A Book of Prefaces
- He often appears with Gen X rabble-rousers like Hiroyuki Nishimura, a celebrity entrepreneur and owner of 4chan, the online message board where some of the internet’s most toxic ideas bloom, and Takafumi Horie, a trash-talking entrepreneur who once went to prison for securities fraud.2023 February 12, Motoko Rich, Hikari Hida, “A Yale Professor Suggested Mass Suicide for Old People in Japan. What Did He Mean?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- demagogue
Synonyms of rabble rouser
Forms of rabble rouser
| plural | rabble rousers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | rabble-rouser |
Questions about rabble rouser
- What does rabble rouser mean?
- Rabble rouser means someone or something that tends to inspire mobs; something controversial or provocative.
- What part of speech is rabble rouser?
- Rabble rouser is a noun.
- What is the plural of rabble rouser?
- The plural of rabble rouser is rabble rousers.
Words near rabble rouser in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rabble rouser (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-rabble_rouser.ogg, En-au-rabble rouser.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rabble rouser.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rabble_rouser. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.