Word.ws English Dictionary

rough-and-tumbles

rough-and-tumbles is the plural of rough-and-tumble.

rough-and-tumbles is the third-person singular simple present indicative of rough-and-tumble.

Meaning of rough-and-tumble

Noun

rough-and-tumble (plural rough-and-tumbles)

  1. Rough activity; fighting or brawling; a fight.
    • "You played Rugger for Ireland, did you not? You don't mind a possible rough-and-tumble, do you?" Malone grinned over the receiver.1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
  2. An environment of rough activity.
  3. A person who characteristically engages in such activity.
    • This will appear a very tedious process to some of our rough-and-tumbles.1854, William Chorlton, “The Culture of Celery”, in Luther Tucker, editor, The Horticulturist, and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste, page 166

See all 6 meanings of rough-and-tumble

Questions about rough-and-tumbles

What is rough-and-tumbles the plural of?
Rough-and-tumbles is the plural of rough-and-tumble.

Words near rough-and-tumbles in the dictionary

  1. rough vacuums
  2. Rough Wooing
  3. rough-and-ready
  4. rough-and-tumble
  5. rough-and-tumbled
  6. rough-and-tumbles
  7. rough-and-tumbling
  8. rough-around-the-edges
  9. rough-backed litter snake
  10. rough-backed litter snakes
  11. rough-book

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rough-and-tumbles (page history and authors); rough-and-tumble (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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