rambunctious

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The Word of the Day for December 4 is:=20

rambunctious   \ram-BUNK-shuss\   adjective
          : marked by uncontrollable exuberance : unruly=20

Example sentence:
          By the time she finally got the three rambunctious children to=
 bed, the babysitter was exhausted.

Did you know?
      "Rambunctious" first appeared in print in 1830, at a time when the=
 fast-growing United States was forging its identity and indulging in a =
fashion for colorful new coinages suggestive of the young nation's optim=
ism and exuberance. "Rip-roaring," "scalawag," "hornswoggle," and "skeda=
ddle" are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did America=
ns alter the largely British "rumbustious" because it sounded, well, Bri=
tish? That could be. "Rumbustious," which first appeared in Britain in t=
he late 1700s, was probably based on "robustious," a much older adjectiv=
e that meant both "robust" and "boisterous."





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