rowdy
See also: Rowdy
English
Alternative forms
- rowdie
Etymology
Possibly from row (“noisy argument”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɹaʊdi/
Audio (UK) (file)
- Rhymes: -aʊdi
Adjective
rowdy (comparative rowdier, superlative rowdiest)
- Loud and disorderly; riotous; boisterous.
Synonyms
- unruly
- disorderly
Derived terms
- rowdily
- rowdiness
- rowdyism
Translations
rough and disorderly
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Noun
rowdy (plural rowdies)
- A boisterous person; a brawler.
- 2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 164:
- Carpenter recruited his gang at the saloon, rowdies all. They slept the day, drank well into the evening, and then set off for their pastime.
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- (Victorian slang) money; ready money.
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 76, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:
- I don’t know whether I quite approve of your throwing over Mr. P. for Mr. F., and don’t think Foker’s such a pretty name, and from your account of him he seems a muff, and not a beauty. But he has got the rowdy, which is the thing.
- 1855, Charles Godfrey Leland, Meister Karl's Sketch-Book (Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan), ch 22, p 166:
- The blessing of the priest converts flesh into fish; the skil of the resataurateur changes pet pussies into favourite dishes; the learning of the consmetic-chemist metamorphoses age into youth; the wisdom of Solomen Isaacs transmogrifies old garments into now; the tact of the lawyer makes the worse appear the better cause; and the magic spell of the ready—otherwise know as money, cash, tin, stuff, rhino, root-of-all-evil, blunt, wherewithal, 'rowdy, funds, stumpy, pecuniary, dibs, hard, browns, heavy, mopusses, slugs, shiners, lucre, or 'the filthy,' dust, gelt, chips, lumps, chinkers, mint-drops, pewter, brass, horsenails, rocks, brads, spondulix, needful, dough, spoons, buttons, dimes, or the infallible— will convert every article and item in that old sole-leather into "duty free."
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Synonyms
- brawler
- ruffian
Descendants
- → German: Rowdy
Translations
boisterous person
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Anagrams
- dowry, wordy