Rough-and-tumble
adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Rough activity; fighting or brawling; a fight.
""You played Rugger for Ireland, did you not? You don't mind a possible rough-and-tumble, do you?" Malone grinned over the receiver."
- 2 disorderly fighting wordnet
- 3 An environment of rough activity.
- 4 A person who characteristically engages in such activity.
"This will appear a very tedious process to some of our rough-and-tumbles."
- 1 To engage in rough-and-tumble activity. intransitive
"But, for all that, our British experience of electioneering "rough-and-tumbling'" has long blunted the edge of our moral anger."
- 1 Active, vigorous and rough, with the possibility of harm.
"An assistant about the theatre grappled him, and they were soon upon the floor engaged in a regular rough-and-tumble fight."
- 2 Highly competitive.
"She found fame and success in the rough-and-tumble garment district."
- 1 characterized by disorderly action and disregard for rules wordnet
Example
More examples"The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs."
Etymology
From rough + and + tumble.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.