Library / English Dictionary

RIOT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity

Synonyms:

bacchanal; bacchanalia; debauch; debauchery; drunken revelry; orgy; riot; saturnalia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("riot" is a kind of...):

revel; revelry (unrestrained merrymaking)

Derivation:

riot (engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking)

riotous (unrestrained by convention or morality)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A public act of violence by an unruly mob

Synonyms:

public violence; riot

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("riot" is a kind of...):

force; violence (an act of aggression (as one against a person who resists))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "riot"):

race riot (a riot caused by hatred for one another of members of different races in the same community)

Derivation:

riot (take part in a riot; disturb the public peace by engaging in a riot)

riotous (characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A joke that seems extremely funny

Synonyms:

belly laugh; howler; riot; scream; sidesplitter; thigh-slapper; wow

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("riot" is a kind of...):

gag; jape; jest; joke; laugh (a humorous anecdote or remark intended to provoke laughter)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A state of disorder involving group violence

Synonyms:

riot; rioting

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("riot" is a kind of...):

disorder (a disturbance of the peace or of public order)

Derivation:

riot (take part in a riot; disturb the public peace by engaging in a riot)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking

Example:

They were out carousing last night

Synonyms:

carouse; riot; roister

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "riot" is one way to...):

jollify; make happy; make merry; make whoopie; racket; revel; wassail; whoop it up (celebrate noisily, often indulging in drinking; engage in uproarious festivities)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

riot (a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Take part in a riot; disturb the public peace by engaging in a riot

Example:

Students were rioting everywhere in 1968

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "riot" is one way to...):

rampage (act violently, recklessly, or destructively)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Derivation:

riot (a public act of violence by an unruly mob)

riot (a state of disorder involving group violence)

rioter (troublemaker who participates in a violent disturbance of the peace; someone who rises up against the constituted authority)

rioting (a state of disorder involving group violence)

Credits

 Context examples: 

It needed very little more to finish the supper by a general and ferocious battle, and it was only the exertions of Jackson, Belcher, Harrison, and others of the cooler and steadier men, which saved us from a riot.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Roses covered the walls of the house, draped the cornices, climbed the pillars, and ran riot over the balustrade of the wide terrace, whence one looked down on the sunny Mediterranean, and the white-walled city on its shore.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Miss Morland, do not mind what he says; but have the goodness to satisfy me as to this dreadful riot.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

And all the while I sat in a half-daze, the drunken riot of the steerage breaking through the bulkhead, the man I feared and the woman I loved talking on and on.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The —th regiment are stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He lived every moment of his waking hours, and he lived in his sleep, his subjective mind rioting through his five hours of surcease and combining the thoughts and events of the day into grotesque and impossible marvels.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Riot! What riot?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Now it bound him with insentient fetters, walling his soul in darkness and silence, blocking it from the world which to him had been a riot of action.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)