rigmarole
UK/ˈɹɪɡməɹəʊl//ˈɹɪɡməɹoʊl/
rigmarole noun: a long and complicated formal procedure.
Noun
rigmarole (countable and uncountable, plural rigmaroles)
- A long and complicated formal procedure.
- Have you seen all the rigmarole you have to go through at airport security these days?
- “Happy Father's Day! Birdhouse is coming along great. 'Course, the city inspector's riding me about zoning laws, and my electrician's putting me through the whole rigmarole.” “Steve, you've made peace with never being with a woman, right?” “Uh, yeah.”2016 November 7, Jordan Blum & Parker Deay, “Father's Daze” (3:52 from the start), in American Dad!, season 14, episode 1, spoken by Steve Smith (Scott Grimes)
- Synonyms:
- carry-on, circus act, palaver, riddle me ree
- Confused and incoherent talk; nonsense.
- If you are alluding to Dostoevski’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Karamazov Brothers and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigmarole.
- Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.1847, Thomas De Quincey, “Secret Societies”, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine
- Synonyms:
- babble, blather, gibberish, migmarole, absurdity, all my eye, all my eye and Betty Martin, apple grease, applesauce, bafflegab
Adjective
rigmarole
- Characterized by rigmarole; prolix; tedious.
- This is a most rigmarole letter, for after each sentence, I take breath[…]1838 September 14, Charles Darwin, To Charles Lyell; republished as “Letter no. 428”, in Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge, 2023, retrieved 23 May 2024
- "This officer has ended at last," said the Prime Minister. "Another story of calamity, and told in a very rigmarole way, I must confess; but he never can shorten his reports by only inserting the weighty matter. 'Reports annexed,' indeed!—yes, six of them; and underneath sixteen other reports—all...1886, “The Nation's Progress”, in Albion and Ierne, London: Marcus Ward & Company, page 133
- Synonyms:
- long-winded, palaverous, circumlocutory, diffuse, periphrastic, pleonastic, prolix, sesquipedalian, verbose, wordy
rigmarole meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
rigmarole in Tamil
- நீண்ட, சிக்கலான வழிமுறை, குழப்பமான, பொருளற்ற, பொருந்தாப் பேச்சு
rigmarole in Urdu
- لنگ ترانی
rigmarole in Bengali
- rigmarole, prattling
- বক্তৃতা bōktrita
rigmarole in Malayalam
- trouble, fuss, bother
- ആയാസകരമായ കൃത്യം, സൊല്ല, ഉപദ്രവം, അനാവശ്യമായ ഒച്ചപ്പാട്, അസംഗതജല്പനം, കാര്യമില്ലാത്ത ബഹളം
- saga, tale, yarn
- കാടുകേറിയ നീണ്ട ആഖ്യാനം, അനർഗ്ഗളകഥനം, കെട്ടുകഥ, ഇഴഞ്ഞുനീങ്ങുന്ന നീണ്ട കഥ, മഹാകഥ, മെനഞ്ഞുണ്ടാക്കിയ കഥ
More languagesFewer languages
- rigmarole in Kannada
- ಹುರುಳಿಲ್ಲದ ಮಾತು, ಅಸಂಬದ್ಧ ನಿರೂಪಣೆ, ಕಂತೆಪುರಾಣ, ಸುದೀರ್ಘ
Examples of rigmarole in a sentence
- You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster.1854, Henry David Thoreau, chapter VII, in Walden:
- His reply did not even allude to the subject, but was a rigmarole about the weather; as if he had been writing to an idiot, who did not require a rational answer to any question they had asked.1880, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, A Blighted Life, sxn 4
- "Stuff and nonsense, and lying rigmaroles!" he growled, as I vanished through the door[.]1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 250:
- In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and see his family in the bush.1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter XIX, in The Valima Letters:
Synonyms of rigmarole
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of rigmarole
| plural | rigmaroles |
|---|---|
| alternative form | rigamarole |
Origin of rigmarole
From ragman roll (“long list; catalogue”). Recorded since c1736.
Words formed from rigmarole
Questions about rigmarole
- What does rigmarole mean?
- Rigmarole means a long and complicated formal procedure.
- What is rigmarole in Tamil?
- Rigmarole in Tamil is நீண்ட, சிக்கலான வழிமுறை, குழப்பமான. See Rigmarole meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use rigmarole in a sentence?
- You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster.
- What part of speech is rigmarole?
- Rigmarole can be a noun or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce rigmarole?
- Rigmarole is pronounced /ˈɹɪɡməɹəʊl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of rigmarole?
- The plural of rigmarole is rigmaroles.
Words near rigmarole in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rigmarole (page history and authors); rigmarole (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rigmarole (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); বক্তৃতা (Bengali) (page history and authors); rigmarole (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); rigmarole (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-rigmarole.ogg, en-au-rigmarole.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rigmarole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rigmarole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.