Word.ws English Dictionary

rum go

UK/ˈɹʌm ˌɡəʊ/

rum go noun: a peculiar, surprising, and/or confusing event, thing, etc.

Noun

rum go (plural rum gos)

  1. (Cockney, dated, slang) A peculiar, surprising, and/or confusing event, thing, etc.
    • ‘Here’s rayther a rum go, sir,’ replied Sam. / ‘What?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick. / ‘This here, Sir,’ rejoined Sam. ‘I’m wery much afeerd, sir, that the properiator o' this here coach is a playin' some imperence vith us.’1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter XXXV, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC
    • “Well, who's a better right?” growled the gamekeeper. “A pretty rum go if squire ain't to talk for Dr. Livesey, I should think.”1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “I Go to Bristol”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part II (The Sea Cook), page 55
    Synonyms:
    rum one, rum start, rum 'un

Examples of rum go in a sentence

  • Bert: Life's a rum go, Guv'nor, and that's the truth.1964, William Crozier Walsh et al., Mary Poppins:
  • Adrian thought it worth while to try out his new slang. ‘I say, you fellows, here's a rum go.1991, Stephen Fry, chapter III, in The Liar, London: William Heinemann, →ISBN, page 26:

Synonyms of rum go

  • rum one
  • rum start
  • rum 'un

Forms of rum go

pluralrum gos

Origin of rum go

UK dialectal (chiefly Cockney); rum (“strange, peculiar”) + go (“incident, occurrence”).

Questions about rum go

What does rum go mean?
Rum go means a peculiar, surprising, and/or confusing event, thing, etc.
How do you use rum go in a sentence?
Bert: Life's a rum go, Guv'nor, and that's the truth.
What part of speech is rum go?
Rum go is a noun.
How do you pronounce rum go?
Rum go is pronounced /ˈɹʌm ˌɡəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of rum go?
The plural of rum go is rum gos.

Words near rum go in the dictionary

  1. rum culls
  2. rum deal
  3. rum deals
  4. rum fit
  5. rum fits
  6. rum go
  7. rum gos
  8. rum ham
  9. rum hole
  10. rum holes
  11. rum mill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rum go (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-au-rum go.ogg.

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