RUMMAGE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Rummage

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/rˈəmɪdʒ/ Listen

verb

Rummage v. t. (past & past part. rummaged; pres. part. rummaging)

(Naut.) To make room in, as a ship, for the cargo; to move about, as packages, ballast, so as to permit close stowage; to stow closely; to pack; formerly written roomage, and romage. (Obs.) "They might bring away a great deal more than they do, if they would take pain in the romaging."

To search or examine thoroughly by looking into every corner, and turning over or removing goods or other things; to examine, as a book, carefully, turning over leaf after leaf. "He... searcheth his pockets, and taketh his keys, and so rummageth all his closets and trunks." "What schoolboy of us has not rummaged his Greek dictionary in vain for a satisfactory account!"

Rummage v. i. To search a place narrowly. "I have often rummaged for old books in Little Britain and Duck Lane." "(His house) was haunted with a jolly ghost, that....... rummaged like a rat."

noun

Rummage n.

(Naut.) A place or room for the stowage of cargo in a ship; also, the act of stowing cargo; the pulling and moving about of packages incident to close stowage; formerly written romage. (Obs.)

A searching carefully by looking into every corner, and by turning things over. "He has made such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony."

Rummage sale, a clearance sale of unclaimed goods in a public store, or of odds and ends which have accumulated in a shop.

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Etymology of 'Rummage'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books

... had he to rummage in my box, interfering with my things; he put them all along the kitchen table; he did it because I told you, miss, that he was carrying on with the kitchenmaid. He goes with her every evening into the wood shed, and a married ...

— Spring Days • George Moore

... Bea said, easily. "Of course Steve's a wonderful old dear and all that—I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it." She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined basket and devour ...

— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... security for the repayment of the loan, he is at that moment in possession of a document, which he is prepared to deposit with the lender—a document calculated, he cannot doubt, to remove any feeling of anxiety which the most prudent person could experience in the circumstances. After a rummage in his pockets, which develops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no means valuable possessions, he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled bit of paper, and spreads it out—a fifty-pound ...

— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... the ex-manager had gone into Kent's room to rummage for the smoke offering. "And they give us the major in the place of such a man as that!" with a jerk of his thumb toward the door ...

— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... often when I heard things that would entertain you, and thought I had collected a great store, but when I rummage in my head, for want of having had, or taken time to keep the drawers of my cabinet of memory tidy, I cannot find one single thing that I want, except that it is said that plants raised from cuttings do not bear such fine flowers as those raised from seeds.—That a lady, whose parrot had lost ...

— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

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