Word.ws English Dictionary

roughhouse

/ˈɹʌf.haʊs/

roughhouse adjective: of behavior, rowdy, boisterous, or fighting.

Adjective

roughhouse (comparative more roughhouse, superlative most roughhouse)

  1. (idiomatic) Of behavior, rowdy, boisterous, or fighting.
    • The film presents Gia as a roughhouse girl plopped down in the world of instant fame, sex, money, and drugs.2009, Jerry Roberts, Encyclopedia of Television Film Directors, page 107

Noun

roughhouse (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) Rowdy behavior.

Verb

roughhouse (third-person singular simple present roughhouses, present participle roughhousing, simple past and past participle roughhoused)

  1. (intransitive) To play roughly (with physical roughness).
    • Out in the street, some delinquents were roughhousing, until the police drove by.
    Synonyms:
    horseplay
  2. (intransitive) To commit physical assault.
    • Out in the street, some delinquents were roughhousing, until the police drove by.
  3. (transitive) To treat (someone or something) roughly or violently.
    • Out in the street, some delinquents were roughhousing a victim, until the police drove by.
    Synonyms:
    rough up, work over

Synonyms of roughhouse

Forms of roughhouse

Adjective
comparativemore roughhouse
superlativemost roughhouse
alternative formrough house
alternative formrough-house
Verb
third-person singular presentroughhouses
present participleroughhousing
past participleroughhoused
pastroughhoused

Origin of roughhouse

From rough + house.

Words formed from roughhouse

Questions about roughhouse

What does roughhouse mean?
Roughhouse means of behavior, rowdy, boisterous, or fighting.
What part of speech is roughhouse?
Roughhouse can be an adjective, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce roughhouse?
Roughhouse is pronounced /ˈɹʌf.haʊs/.

Words near roughhouse in the dictionary

  1. roughhew
  2. roughhewed
  3. roughhewing
  4. roughhewn
  5. roughhews
  6. roughhouse
  7. roughhoused
  8. roughhouser
  9. roughhousers
  10. roughhouses
  11. roughhousing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roughhouse (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-roughhouse.wav.

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