Word.ws English Dictionary

rambunctious

Syllables: ram·bunct·iousUK/ɹæmˈbʌŋ(k)ʃəs/

rambunctious adjective: boisterous, energetic, noisy, and difficult to control.

Adjective

rambunctious (comparative more rambunctious, superlative most rambunctious)

  1. (US, informal) Boisterous, energetic, noisy, and difficult to control.
    • The kids are being especially rambunctious today.
    • "Bad cess may attend you, where are you scampering to, you rambunctious"—but she could go no farther; the tears burst from her, and she gave way, without farther resistance, to an explosion of grief.1852 November, O’Hara Family, “Clough Fionn; or, The Stone of Destiny”, in The Dublin University Magazine, a Literary and Political Journal, volume XL, number CCXXXIX, Dublin: James McGlashan, […]...

Examples of rambunctious in a sentence

  • "Not as you knows on, you rambunctious wool grower," said the indignant Yankee.1856 October, “About These Books”, in J. Clement, editor, The Western Literary Messenger […], volume XXVII, number II, Buffalo, N.Y....
  • It may sometimes appear that Canada is composed of nine complacent, cohesive English-speaking provinces and rambunctious Quebec.1979, “The Art of Government is the Art of Adjustment”, in Canada Today = Canada d’aujourd’hui, volume 10, number 4, Washington, D.C....
  • Eventually the two rambunctious wolves decided to race back towards the carcass, no doubt forgetting I was still there.1990 March, L[ucyan] David Mech, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”, in Audubon, New York, N.Y.: National Audubon Society, →ISSN, →OCLC...
  • Tinkle, your son’s rambunctious behavior is quite common in children with unusually high intelligence levels.2002 May 1, Jeffrey J. Rowland, Wigu Adventures, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2009:

Synonyms of rambunctious

All synonyms of rambunctious

Forms of rambunctious

comparativemore rambunctious
superlativemost rambunctious
alternative formrambunxious
alternative formrumbunctious

Origin of rambunctious

A variant of rumbustious (“boisterous and unruly”).

Words formed from rambunctious

Questions about rambunctious

What does rambunctious mean?
Rambunctious means boisterous, energetic, noisy, and difficult to control.
How do you use rambunctious in a sentence?
"Not as you knows on, you rambunctious wool grower," said the indignant Yankee.
What part of speech is rambunctious?
Rambunctious is an adjective.
How do you pronounce rambunctious?
Rambunctious is pronounced /ɹæmˈbʌŋ(k)ʃəs/ (UK).

Words near rambunctious in the dictionary

  1. Rambouillets
  2. ramboutan
  3. ramboutans
  4. rambunction
  5. rambunctions
  6. rambunctious
  7. rambunctiously
  8. rambunctiousness
  9. rambung
  10. rambunxious
  11. rambustan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rambunctious (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-rambunctious.ogg.

Cite this entry: “rambunctious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rambunctious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.