RUMMAGE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.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

... but it happened that I had never seen any in my life. I remember I thought it must be white and soft like the string of a firecracker. So I began to rummage through all the drawers and boxes for fuse. One of the first things I came across was a coil of black, stiff, tarry string, but I threw it to one side and went on looking for fuse. After I had hunted half an hour and found none, I gave up. As I stood there thinking, a good deal discouraged, ...

— Track's End • Hayden Carruth

... stocked with its hardware; even a carpet lay on the floor, for Mrs. Lloyd having heard from David a laughing declaration of Matilda's present longing for an old carpet, had immediately given permission to the children to rummage in the lumber room and take anything they found that was not too good. Matilda was very much afraid there would be nothing that did not come under that description; however, a little old piece of carpet was found that somehow had escaped being ...

— Trading • Susan Warner

... though he was a man of wide and not very edifying experience. The tactics which had started his friendship with Joanna he had learned at the shorthand and typewriting college where he had learned his clerking job—and they had brought him a rummage of adventures, some transient, some sticky, some dirty, some glamorous. He had met girls of a fairly good class—for his looks caused much to be forgiven him—as well as the typists, shop-girls and waitresses of his more usual association. But he ...

— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... you boys go rummage the store room for the corn popper. The corn's in a corn-meal sack on the ...

— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... cruiser of the Crown; "yes! I, and my officers, will taste of your banquet! But the viands shall be such as these hirelings of the King shall little relish!—Pull with a will, my men, pull; in an hour, you shall rummage the store-rooms of that ...

— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

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