Word of the Day

: June 4, 2021

rigmarole

noun RIG-uh-muh-rol

What It Means

1 : confused or meaningless talk

2 : a complex and sometimes ritualistic procedure

rigmarole in Context

"We know now, thanks to Reddit threads and social media doing its due diligence, the real reason McDonald's ice cream machines always seem to be broken is because they're not—they just take four hours and an 11-step process to clean. This rigmarole is often what's actually preventing McDonald's employees from serving up your hot fudge sundae." — Megan Scott, Mashed.com, 23 Oct. 2020

"You've gone through the appointment rigmarole to get signed up for a COVID vaccine, got your first shot, waited the required three to four week period for your second. But when that booster dose comes, be warned that you might be experiencing symptoms a few hours later." — Gershon Harrell, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 26 Feb. 2021

Did You Know?

In the Middle Ages, the term Rageman or Ragman referred to a game in which a player randomly selected a string attached to a roll of verses and read the selected verse. The roll was called a Ragman roll after a fictional king purported to be the author of the verses. By the 16th century, ragman and ragman roll were being used figuratively to mean "a list or catalog." Both terms fell out of written use, but ragman roll persisted in speech, and in the 18th century it resurfaced in writing as rigmarole, with the meaning "a succession of confused, meaningless, or foolish statements." In the mid-19th century rigmarole (also spelled rigamarole, reflecting its common pronunciation) acquired the sense referring to a complex and ritualistic procedure.