Word of the Day

: December 4, 2007

rambunctious

adjective ram-BUNK-shuss

What It Means

: marked by uncontrollable exuberance : unruly

rambunctious in Context

By the time she finally got the three rambunctious children to bed, the babysitter was exhausted.

Did You Know?

"Rambunctious" first appeared in print in 1830, at a time when the fast-growing United States was forging its identity and indulging in a fashion for colorful new coinages suggestive of the young nation's optimism and exuberance. "Rip-roaring," "scalawag," "hornswoggle," and "skedaddle" are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did Americans alter the largely British "rumbustious" because it sounded, well, British? That could be. "Rumbustious," which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s, was probably based on "robustious," a much older adjective that meant both "robust" and "boisterous."