or rumbumption, &c., subs. and adj. (common).—A class of colloquialisms compounded with an intensive prefix: (1) RAM (imitatively varied by RUM) = very, strong; and (2) RUM (q.v.) = good, fine, &c.: also cf. RAMP as in RAMPAGEOUS. Thus RAMBUNCTIOUS (or RAMBUSTIOUS) = noisy, ‘high-and-mighty’; RAMBUSTION = a row; RAMBUMPTIOUS = conceited, self-assertive (GROSE); RUMBUMPTION = conceit, cock-sure-ness; RUMGUMPTION = mother-wit; RAMGUMPTIOUS = shrewd, bold, rash (GROSE); RAMFEEZLED = exhausted; RAMBUSKIOUS = rough; RAMGUNSCHOCH = rough; RAMSHACKLE = rickety, crazy. Substantives are similarly formed: e.g., RAMBUNCTION, RAMBUMPTION, RAMGUMPTION, &c., whilst such variants as RUMMEL-FUMPTION, RUMBLE-GUMPTION, RUMSTRUGENOUS, and the like are coined at will. Also RUMBUSTICATOR = a man of means, and RAMSTAM = a headlong fool, and as adj. = deliberately or undilutedly silly.
1768. A. ROSS, Helenore, ‘Beattie’s Address.’
| They need not try thy jokes to fathom, | |
| They want RUMGUMPTION. |
1777. FOOTE, The Trip to Calais, i. Clack. The sea has been rather RUMBUSTIOUS, I own.
d. 1796. BURNS, To James Smith. The hairum-scairum, RAM-STAM boys.
1817. SCOTT, Rob Roy, xxviii. If we gang RAM-STAM in on them [we’ll get] a broken head to learn us better havings.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, 3.
| Has thought of a plan, which—excuse his presumption— | |
| He hereby submits to your Royal RUMGUMPTION. |
1822. HOGG, The Three Perils of Man, I. 78. Ye sude hae stayed at hame, an’ wantit a wife till ye gathered mair RUMMELGUMPTION.
1823. GALT, The Entail, III. 69. Walky, who is a lad of a methodical nature, and no a hurly-burly RAMSTAM, like yon flea-luggit thing, Jamie.
1823. LOCKHART, Reginald Dalton, I. 199. This will learn ye, again, ye young RAMSHACKLE!
1843. W. T. PORTER, ed., The Big Bear of Arkansas, etc., 120. He’s as RAMSTUGENOUS an animal as a log-cabin loafer in the dog-days.
1845. SURTEES, Hillingdon Hall, V. 21. The RUMBUSTICAL apologies for great coats that have inundated the town of late years.
1847. G. ELIOT [Life (1885), I. 168]. All those monstrous ROMBUSTICAL beasts with their horns.
1847. THACKERAY, The Cane-Bottom’d Chair, st. 5.
| And ’tis wonderful, surely, what music you get | |
| From the rickety, RAMSHACKLE, wheezy spinet. |
1850. F. E. SMEDLEY, Frank Fairlegh, ix. He boldly inquired whether … “I had not been a-enhaling laughing gas, or any sich RUM-BUSTICAL wegitable?”
1853. BULWER-LYTTON, My Novel, XI. xix. As for that white-whiskered alligator … let me get out of those RAMBUSTIOUS, unchristian, filbert-shaped claws of his.
1860. DICKENS, The Uncommercial Traveller, xviii. The RAMSHACKLE vetturino carriage in which I was departing.
1882. Athenœum, 1 April. A RAMSHACKLE wagon, rough men, and a rougher landscape.
1883. S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), Life on the Mississippi, xlviii. Strung along below the city, were a number of decayed, RAM-SHACKLY, superannuated old steamboats.
