Word.ws English Dictionary

rumpus

/ˈɹʌm.pəs/

rumpus noun: a noisy, sometimes violent disturbance; noise and confusion; a noisy quarrel or brawl.

Noun

rumpus (countable and uncountable, plural rumpuses)

  1. A noisy, sometimes violent disturbance; noise and confusion; a noisy quarrel or brawl.
    • "I'd like to know how on earth we are going to finish the case with all this umptydoodle rumpus going on."1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 166
    • But as his rumpus with Mr. Christie entered its second and third rounds, Mr. Rubio appeared to abandon that game plan.2016 February 7, Michael Barbaro, “Once Impervious, Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie”, in The New York Times
    Synonyms:
    ruckus, turmoil
  2. (Australia, Canada, New Zealand) A rumpus room.

Verb

rumpus (third-person singular simple present rumpuses, present participle rumpusing, simple past and past participle rumpused or rumpussed)

  1. (informal, intransitive) To cause a noisy disturbance or commotion.
    • All night, as wide awake as gnats, The terriers rumpused after rats, Or, just for practice, taught their brats, To worry cast-off shoes and hats.1851, James Russell Lowell, Unhappy Mr. Knott, page 291
    • ... and Marie routed up Mammy nights, and rumpussed and scolded, with more energy than ever, all day, on the strength of this new misery.1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, page 81

rumpus meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

rumpus in Tamil

கலசும், குழப்பம், இரைச்சல்

rumpus in Urdu

افراتفری, ہنگامہ, ادھم

rumpus in Malayalam

commotion, disturbance, uproar
ആരവകോലഹലം, കുഴപ്പം, കലക്കം, ക്ഷോഭം, ബഹളം, കലാപം

rumpus in Kannada

ರಂಪ, ರಾದ್ಧಾಂತ, ಗಲಭೆ, ಗದ್ದಲ, ದೊಂಬಿ, ಕೋಲಾಹಲ

Examples of rumpus in a sentence

  • I get up, I get down, and I'm jumping around / And the rumpus and ruckus are comfortable now / Been a hell of a ride, but I'm thinking it's time to grow / Bang!2020 February 12, Jack Met, Adam Met, Ryan Met, “Bang!”, in OK Orchestra, performed by AJR:
  • She had been rumpusing with the poker and tongs during the dialogue between the guests, and she enforced her order by thrusting the poker towards the distant corner where the girl sat, as she spoke.1876, Julie P. Smith, His Young Wife, A Novel, page 56:
  • Instead she rumpuses about waving her legs in the air and spinning her feet doing three exercises she dubs "Tumbleweed, Clothespin, and Wind Farm."2019, Sam Pickering, The World Was My Garden, Too:

Synonyms of rumpus

Forms of rumpus

Noun
pluralrumpuses
Verb
third-person singular presentrumpuses
present participlerumpusing
past participlerumpused
pastrumpused
past participlerumpussed
pastrumpussed

Origin of rumpus

Unknown. First use appears c. 1745. The OED indicates: "perhaps an arbitrary formation". Possibly an alteration of rumbustical or rumbustious (“boisterous, noisy”) + Latin -us (“nominative suffix”). The use of the verbal form first appears c. 1839.

Words formed from rumpus

Phrases with rumpus

Questions about rumpus

What does rumpus mean?
Rumpus means a noisy, sometimes violent disturbance; noise and confusion; a noisy quarrel or brawl.
What is rumpus in Tamil?
Rumpus in Tamil is கலசும், குழப்பம், இரைச்சல். See Rumpus meaning in Tamil.
How do you use rumpus in a sentence?
I get up, I get down, and I'm jumping around / And the rumpus and ruckus are comfortable now / Been a hell of a ride, but I'm thinking it's time to grow / Bang!
What part of speech is rumpus?
Rumpus can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce rumpus?
Rumpus is pronounced /ˈɹʌm.pəs/.
What is the plural of rumpus?
The plural of rumpus is rumpuses.

Words near rumpus in the dictionary

  1. rumption
  2. rumptions
  3. rumptious
  4. rumpty
  5. rumpty-tumpty
  6. rumpus
  7. rumpus room
  8. rumpus rooms
  9. rumpused
  10. rumpuses
  11. rumpusing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rumpus (page history and authors); rumpus (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rumpus (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rumpus (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); rumpus (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-rumpus.wav.

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