Library / English Dictionary

RUMMAGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A thorough search for something (often causing disorder or confusion)

Example:

he gave the attic a good rummage but couldn't find his skis

Synonyms:

ransacking; rummage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

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

hunt; hunting; search (the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone)

Derivation:

rummage (search haphazardly)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A jumble of things to be given away

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

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

clutter; fuddle; jumble; mare's nest; muddle; smother; welter (a confused multitude of things)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Search haphazardly

Example:

We rummaged through the drawers

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

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

search (subject to a search)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

rummage (a thorough search for something (often causing disorder or confusion))

Credits

 Context examples: 

Among these he rummaged and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we were past Reading.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I suppose that's what you are rummaging after among my things.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She rummaged in a bureau, and presently she produced a photograph of a woman, shamefully defaced and mutilated with a knife.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He rummaged amid his newspapers, glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, doubled it over, and read the following paragraph: Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst., abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

After a grand rummage three of the missing articles were found, one over the bird cage, one covered with ink, and a third burned brown, having been used as a holder.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Jo liked this, and after an energetic rummage from garret to cellar, subsided on the sofa to nurse her cold with arsenicum and books.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She never alluded to a certain person, but she thought of him a good deal, dreamed dreams more than ever, and once Jo, rummaging her sister's desk for stamps, found a bit of paper scribbled over with the words, 'Mrs. John Brooke', whereat she groaned tragically and cast it into the fire, feeling that Laurie's prank had hastened the evil day for her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Beth began by rummaging everything out of the big closet where her family resided, but getting tired before half done, she left her establishment topsy-turvy and went to her music, rejoicing that she had no dishes to wash.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)