Crossword clues for rummage
rummage
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Rummage \Rum"mage\ (?; 48), n. [For roomage, fr. room; hence originally, a making room, a packing away closely. See Room.]
(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.]
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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.
--Walpole.Rummage sale, a clearance sale of unclaimed goods in a public store, or of odds and ends which have accumulated in a shop.
--Simmonds.
Rummage \Rum"mage\, v. i. To search a place narrowly.
I have often rummaged for old books in Little Britain
and Duck Lane.
--Swift.
[His house] was haunted with a jolly ghost, that . . .
. . . rummaged like a rat.
--Tennyson.
Rummage \Rum"mage\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Rummaged; p. pr. & vb. n. Rummaging.]
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(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.
--Hakluyt. -
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.
--Howell.What schoolboy of us has not rummaged his Greek dictionary in vain for a satisfactory account!
--M. Arnold.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1540s, "arrange (cargo) in a ship," from rummage (n.), 1520s, "act of arranging cargo in a ship," a shortening of Middle French arrumage "arrangement of cargo," from arrumer "to stow goods in the hold of a ship," from a- "to" + rumer, probably from Germanic (compare Old Norse rum "compartment in a ship," Old High German rum "space," Old English rum; see room (n.)). Or else from English room (n.) + -age.\n
\nMeaning "to search closely (the hold of a ship), especially by moving things about" first recorded 1610s. Related: Rummaged; rummaging. Rummage sale (1803) originally was a sale at docks of unclaimed goods.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context obsolete English) commotion; disturbance. 2 A thorough search, usually resulting in disorder. 3 An unorganized collection of miscellaneous objects; a jumble. 4 (context nautical English) 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''. vb. 1 (context transitive nautical English) To arrange (cargo, goods, etc.) in the hold of a ship; to move or rearrange such goods. 2 (context transitive nautical English) To search a vessel for smuggled goods. 3 (context transitive English) To search something thoroughly and with disregard for the way in which things were arranged.
WordNet
n. a jumble of things to be given away
a thorough search for something (often causing disorder or confusion); "he gave the attic a good rummage but couldn't find his skis" [syn: ransacking]
v. search haphazardly; "We rummaged through the drawers"
Usage examples of "rummage".
Gator stood by the half-visible airman, talking to her as she rummaged around in the guts of the hydraulics system, electrical lines, and avionics that controlled the Tomcat.
She rummaged in a box that sat on a nearby table and produced a booklike tablet of parchment sheets stitched together.
The bookseller led the way back to his desk, where he rummaged among the litter and finally found a scrap of paper on which he had written: Being myself animated by feelings of affection toward my fellowmen, I am saddened by the modern system of advertising.
Le Duc opened my trunk, and leaving her to rummage in it he came to shave me, and to do my hair.
He sat back, rummaged around in his shirt pocket until he found another cigarillo, then stuck it in his mouth and lit it.
Turning around, he sat down on the bed and rummaged around in his pocket until he found a cigarillo and a match.
But then she rummaged in her purse and pulled out her datacom, tapped a couple of keys, and handed him the slim device.
She threw her notebook and pen on the dinette, then opened the overhead cabinet to rummage through her clothes.
Gray lifted the cushion from the dinette bench, rummaged through the storage bin below, then pulled out the paperback.
Lily advised against her better judgment, but Alden was so happily energized at the moment when he had been sloping around the house so dispiritedly for weeks even as he acted at keeping busy making plans and rummaging in the barn for agrarian implements to polish and sharpen and balance, that Lily could not bring herself to discourage him now.
I rummaged and rooted and pried, feeling as Flinders Petrie may have felt when he thrust his first torch into his first Egyptian burial chamber.
They rummaged through the lumber pile in the great circular room as Myles and Gascoyne had done, and at last, tired out, they ascended to the airy chapel, and there sat cooling themselves in the rustling freshness of the breeze that came blowing briskly in through the arched windows.
They rummaged the near-by woods for better stones, while Milt cut a post of the rot-resisting hackmatack and hewed it square.
He rummaged again and set out a tin of oatcakes, a little kebbuck of cheese, a loaf of bread.
McKelvie heard him out, told him to try to hold the judge for ten minutes, dashed over to his room at the Malaspina Hotel, and rummaged in his dressing case, looking for a double labret a lip ornament worn at one time by the women of the Queen Charlotte Islands.