"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 optimism and exuberance. "Rip-roaring," "scalawag," "scrumptious," "hornswoggle," and "skedaddle" are other examples of the lively language of that era. Did Americans alter the largely British "rumbustious" because it sounded, well, British? That could be. "Rumbustious," which first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s just after our signing of the Declaration of Independence, was probably based on "robustious," a much older adjective that meant both "robust" and "boisterous."
The above is from the MW Word of the Day [I don't have a link]. Too bad robustious passed away, I write with a little tear in my eye...
Mercy me, just for wonderin' I clicked Atomica on it, and boom--up it came! Not even hinted at as being obsolete.
In reply to:
"robustious," a much older adjective that meant both "robust" and "boisterous."
Thanks, Jackie. I made an incorrect assumption based on the above that robustious was an old and defunct term.
Well, I can now use robustious robustiously.
P.S. After reading your post, I checked Onelook, and, sure enough, there on the MW link was robustious, well, alive and kickin'.
there on the MW link was robustious, well, alive and kickin'.
Seen or heard it anywhere else lately?
No, I've never heard robustious till MW sent rambunctious as the Word of the Day.
It's well, alive and kickin' in MW; I have no idea whether it's alive and kickin' anywhere else other than on Jackie's Atomica.
It hasn't reached "obsolete" status because it still gets used in historical contexts; thus it should probably be labeled "archaic"; to wit:
John Madden's last film was Mrs. Brown, in which he deployed the relationship of Queen Victoria and John Brown with stateliness and wit. Here he has seemingly swilled some of Falstaff s sack and has had robustious, fiery fun. Judi Dench, who was his Victoria, is Elizabeth here, and no one else could be tolerated in the part. Madden's most impressive achievement, amidst all the hurly-burly, is an intimate, almost internal one.
- Stanley Kauffmann; The New Republic, Washington; Jan 4-Jan 11, 1999
or,
Either actors "speak the speech . trippingly" while "us[ing] all gently... with temperance" and "smoothness," or they "mouth it" like a "robustious fellow" while "saw[ing] the air," "strutt[ing] and bellow[ing] (Hamlet 3.2.1-33). In his account, timing joins such theatrical elements as intonation ("accent"), bodily configuration ("robustious"), and behavior ("gait") in being correlated with an offstage social polarity that opposes the "barren and incapable" to the "judicious."
- Shakespeare Studies; Columbia; 2001; James R Siemon
The silent pirates of the shore
Eat and sleep soft, and pocket more
Than any red robustious ranger
Who picks his farthings hot from danger.
-RLS
When I saw the name of the thread I immediately assumed it was another Bushism.