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Rummage   Listen
noun
Rummage  n.  
1.
(Naut.) A place or room for the stowage of cargo in a ship; also, the act of stowing cargo; the pulling and moving about of packages incident to close stowage; formerly written romage. (Obs.)
2.
A searching carefully by looking into every corner, and by turning things over. "He has made such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony."
Rummage sale, a clearance sale of unclaimed goods in a public store, or of odds and ends which have accumulated in a shop.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Rummage" Quotes from Famous Books



... we know how, and the first thing we will do is to give that old secretary a good rummage from top to bottom. I've done it once, but it is just possible that the bills may have slipped out of sight. Come, now, I can't rest till I've done all I can to comfort you and ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various

... dropped their hands and started for their section at once. Before they could rummage in their bags for the required article, Mrs. Rayner's voice was heard: "Take this, porter." And she held forth a little silver flask. "I have more in my trunk if it is needed," she added, while a blush mounted to her forehead as she saw the quizzical ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... of mine that men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women—if they can. When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn't matter), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all the relations of life. It isn't their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first and think afterwards; it's the fault of the fools who ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... himself, Rufus began to rummage the pockets of his frockcoat—a long, loose, and dingy garment which had become friendly and comfortable to him by dint of ancient use. Producing a handful of correspondence, he selected the largest envelope of all; shook out on ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... so, rather, Will the thralls of lane and court. ALFRED LYTTLETON, so keen behind the wicket; Lord KINNAIRD, who once was hot upon the ball, Give our Arabs chance of football and of cricket. And you'll fairly earn the hearty thanks of all; For the young City Children, doomed to rummage In dim alleys foul as Styx, Never else may know the rapture of a "scrummage," Or "a slashing drive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various

... But he did not look cast down. "I'll rummage New Orleans for it, if you give me leave to have ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Andre," replied Jean Cornbutte sharply, "but it is also possible that he saved himself. I am going to rummage all the ports of Norway whither he might have been driven, and when I am fully convinced that I shall never see him again, I ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... rummage in her pocket for her spectacles. But Oliver's patience was not proof against this new trial; and yielding to his first impulse, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... it will be quite as well not to tell Maria." But Johnny would hear nothing of this scheme. He would pay the entire cost of his own journey. He had lots of money, he said, and would like nothing better. "Then I'll run down," said Toogood, "and rummage up what tidings I can. As for writing to the dean, what's the good of writing to a man when you don't know where he is? Business letters always lie at hotels for two months, and then come back with double postage. From all I can hear, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... As grandmothers rummage their piece-bags and bundles in search of gay odds and ends to make gifts with which to fill the little stockings that hang all in a row on Christmas Eve, so I have gathered together some stories, old and new, to amuse the large ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... them stuck in your box, as if to invite all the servants to come and have a rummage, when you go ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... off to you—and remember you asked for—the rummage, Rose Mary," answered Everett in a tone as light as hers. Then suddenly he rose and stood tall and straight in front of her, looking down into her upraised eyes in the dusk. "You don't know, do you, you rose woman you, what a man's life can ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... hard with Mr O'Gallagher. My rage was greater than my agony. I stood when I had been landed, my chest heaving, my teeth set fast, and my apparel still in disorder. The school was dismissed, and I was left alone with the savage pedagogue, who immediately took up my basket, and began to rummage ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... lonesome days between!" objected Mrs. Patterson. "Indeed, it will not hurt me, Sarah. Why, I feel better already. And you'll help me. If you'll get out your work-basket, I'll rummage in this trunk ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin

... to the cabin, to get his belongings and to cache the whiskey. If it come into our friend's heads to rummage we might have ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... wicker work! The very thing! It was quite big enough to hold him—it was one of those enormous trunks beloved of women!... To hide in it would be an excellent trick—a real joke! Let me burrow in there, and see the stupefaction of these estimable characters when they open it to rummage about among Elizabeth's belongings and find themselves face to face with me! They will see besides my sympathetic countenance the stern mouth of my revolver!... Let us see whether it ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... the following note many years ago, and am now reminded of its existence by your admirable periodical, which must rouse many an idler besides myself to a rummage amongst long-neglected old papers. This small piece of tradition indicates that the adventurous but ill-advised duke was a man of unusual muscular power ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various

... friends. The entrance-hall was full of things—bags, portmanteaus, and leather articles of every sort. The boxes had to be got out of their covers, and that was infinite trouble; and of luggage and of rummage there was no end. At intervals, moreover, there were violent showers, giving rise to much inconvenience. Ottilie encountered all this confusion with the easiest equanimity, and her happy talent showed in its fairest light. In a very little time she had brought things to order, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... rummage in her trunk and get out the sweater she had come in for, and it was not until the girl was running back to the barns that she realized Aunt Dolcey had not answered her question. But the old woman's words had ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... at ten thirty instead of eleven; but I made up my mind, as we ladies went to the drawing-room for coffee, that I would seize the first favourable opportunity to explore the secret chambers of Dr. La Touche's being. I love to rummage in out-of-the-way corners of people's brains and hearts if they will let me. I like to follow a courteous host through the public corridors of his house and come upon a little chamber closed to the casual visitor. If I have known ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... bleached hair and sparkling eyes. They explained themselves as 'diggers'—just diggers—and opened me a new world. Granted that all Egypt is one big undertaker's emporium, what could be more fascinating than to get Government leave to rummage in a corner of it, to form a little company and spend the cold weather trying to pay dividends in the shape of amethyst necklaces, lapis-lazuli scarabs, pots of pure gold, and priceless bits of statuary? Or, if one is rich, what better fun than to grub-stake an expedition on ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... though, mother, your coming in here both times? I wonder if you had me on your mind and wanted to see how I was. But you did not seem to. You kept groping your way toward that old closet as though you wished to rummage about in it. But do come and let me take you back to bed now, and I will stay with you so you will behave yourself and give Polly ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook

... Robert would stop, stand still in the middle of the room, cast a mathematical glance of survey over its cubic contents, and then dart off in another inwardly suggested direction of search. Shargar, on the other hand, appeared to rummage blindly without a notion of casting the illumination of thought upon the field of search. Yet to him fell the success. When hope was growing dim, after an hour and a half of vain endeavour, a scream of utter discordance heralded the resurrection of the lady of harmony. Taught ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... I give proof. Here is the book I use daily, to practice myself in the difficulties of the Spanish language. Examine it for yourself, Major," he said, handing him a volume in a very ragged condition, which he had brought up, after a long rummage, from the depths of one of his numerous pockets. "Now you can see whether I am imposing on ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... heard him to an end. He had soon withdrawn his eyes from Stephen's agitated face, then partially averted his own face, then left his seat, and advanced to a side table, where he began to rummage among some papers, with ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... some time there would be no writing. He was aware of a sadness akin to that with which one leaves home and family. He looked at the manuscripts in the corner. That was it. He was going away from them, his pitiful, dishonored children that were welcome nowhere. He went over and began to rummage among them, reading snatches here and there, his favorite portions. "The Pot" he honored with reading aloud, as he did "Adventure." "Joy," his latest-born, completed the day before and tossed into the corner for lack of stamps, won his ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... summer fashions. These headless dummies of the Bowery have a very ghastly look at night. They suggest a procession of the ghosts of Bluebeard's wives, who, true to their instincts while in life, nightly revisit the "ladies' furnishing establishments" here, to rummage among scarfs and ribbons, and don for the brief hour before cock-crow the valuable stuffs and stuffings that are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... lumbering, wide vehicles far gone in the odor of romance, coaches that Vasquez has held up, from whose high seats express messengers have shot or been shot as their luck held. This is to comfort you when the driver stops to rummage for wire to mend a failing bolt. There is enough of this sort of thing to quite prepare you to believe what the driver insists, namely, that all that country and Jimville are held ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... "clamant" than carmine, vermilion, crimson, Costlier than diamond or ultramarine— A deuce of a theme to chant lyrics or hymns on, Or rummage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various

... heard. It was easy to guess that those light steps were a woman's. Edoardo turned towards a table, as if to look for some papers, saying to himself: 'I am lost.' And Sophia knelt down by the trunk that contained her clothes, pretending to rummage for something in it, while she wiped away her tears, and suppressed ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... knife, a spoon, a copy of Browning's poems, and several other sizable articles from the table close to Stanton's elbow. Nothing but the dictionary seemed too big to throw. Finally with a grin that could not be disguised even from the dog, Stanton began to rummage with eye and hand through the intricate ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... magnetic force and charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in the course ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie

... Yaffil, green woodpecker. "The yaffil laughed loud."—See Peacock at Home. Smellfox, anemone. Dead men's fingers, orchis. Granny's night-cap, water avens. Jacob's ladder, Solomon's seal. Lady's slipper, Prunella vulgaris. Poppy, foxglove. To routle, to rummage (like a pig in straw). To terrify, to worry or disturb. "Poor old man, the children did terrify him so, he is gone into the Union." Wind-list, white streak of faint cloud across a blue sky, showing the direction of the wind. Shuffler, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... returned Sterling, as his ship moved on; "by the way, Sir Gervaise, would it not be fair-play to rummage the prize's lockers before she gets into the hands of the custom-house? Out here on the high seas, there can be no smuggling in that: there must be good claret ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... laws; yet under thy regimen they take us from the bosom of the nurse, turn the meat about upon the platter, pull the bed-clothes off, make us sleep when we would wake, and wake when we would sleep, and never cease to rummage and twitch us, until they see us safe landed at the grave. We can do nothing (but be poisoned) with impunity. What is worst of all, we must marry certain relatives and connexions, be they distorted, blear-eyed, toothless, carbuncled, with hair (if any) ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... the house, in order to do anything. I will rummage the first story: you, Fred, will explore the second, and our new friend here can try his luck in the third. As for you, Davis, you must descend into the kitchen, and collect what silver ware and plate you can find. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... secret of her plans for the evening; her head-quarters were in the work-room, which had often served her as a playroom in days gone by, and Judith, gratified by a visit from "Miss Bee," dived for her sake into boxes and drawers, amid hoards where none but Judith would have dared to rummage. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions, be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it, in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. I have ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... spectacles, and once more started to rummage in the cupboard, and to smother his guest with dust as he untied successive packages of papers—so much so that his victim burst out sneezing. Finally he extracted a much-scribbled document in which the names of the deceased peasants lay as close-packed ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... In such cases our minds might be compared to a cluttered room full of things we need and want to use every day, but in confusion. We know where many of them are, the ones we care most about; but we have to rummage wildly to find the rest. We have no proper system of arrangement of our belongings. You laid down that book somewhere, absent-mindedly, and now you cannot tell where. You were thinking of something else at the time, and ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... warren where rabbits abounded. Placing some bran and lettuce in the pouch, he stretched himself out and lay as if dead. His plan was to wait until some young rabbit, unlearned in worldly wisdom, should come and rummage in the pouch for the eatables which he ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... to rummage the basket for those songs which had the most tragical pictures—for Sally had a most tender heart, and delighted in whatever was mournful—Rachel looked steadfastly in her face, and told her she knew by ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... security for the repayment of the loan, he is at that moment in possession of a document, which he is prepared to deposit with the lender—a document calculated, he cannot doubt, to remove any feeling of anxiety which the most prudent person could experience in the circumstances. After a rummage in his pockets, which develops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no means valuable possessions, he at last comes to the object of his search, a crumpled bit of paper, and spreads it out—a fifty-pound bank-note! The ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... of history which is in a manner the characteristic of our time, the Middle Ages have been the object of peculiar fondness with both criticism and erudition. We rummage all the dark corners of the libraries, we bring old parchments to light, and in the zeal and ardor we put into our search there is an indefinable touch ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... commissioners winked to each other and made a certificate on the spot that the governor had refused to answer their interrogatories or to submit to their examination. They then proceeded to rummage about the city for two or three days, in quest of what they called evidence, perplexing Indians and old women with their cross-questioning until they had stuffed their satchels and saddle-bags with all kinds of apocryphal tales, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... upper-passage window, would have thought: 'A ghost, a ghost gone into mourning for the condition of the world.' He had to make this reckoning to-night, while the exaltation of his new idea was on him; had to rummage out the very depths of old association, so that once for all he might know whether he had strength to close the door on the past. Five o'clock struck before he had finished, and, almost dropping from fatigue, sat down at his little piano in bright daylight. The last memory to beset ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... can find us a flagon of wine, too, and of the best, I know that," said Burdale. "Come, man, rummage out your stores, you used not to be ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... rats out!" came in a rough Spanish voice. "Hunt them out! Don't let one of them escape your bayonets!" And then several Mexican soldiers entered the room and began to rummage ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer

... selections and cut out paper dolls till it suddenly dawned upon Nettie that it was time for another meal. She laid down her scissors with a sigh. "I really don't know what we shall have for dinner," she said. "Mother was going to bring something back with her. I shall have to rummage." ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard

... There were no books in the rear room; of this he was presently assured. He came back into the front shop and began to rummage. A few trade catalogues rewarded him and he solemnly ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... great abundance of rabbits. He put bran and sow-thistle into his bag, and stretching out at length, as if he had been dead, he waited for some young rabbits, not yet acquainted with the deceits of the world, to come and rummage his bag for what he ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... to ask you what you had planned for us to have this noon," explained Lucy. "So I had to rummage through the refrigerator and use my ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... could be made out of coaltar, she made her greatest and perhaps her only claim on the real respect of the human soul. Now the aim of the good woman is to use the by-products, or, in other words, to rummage in the dustbin. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... his interest in the newspaper had lapsed at all, he used to give his Sunday leisure to making selections and writing paragraphs for it; but he now let the pile of exchanges lie unopened on his desk, and began to rummage through the letters scattered about in it. They were mostly from young ladies with whom he had corresponded, and some of them enclosed the photographs of the writers, doing their best to look as they hoped he ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... measurements, of the quantitative relations of phenomena; the value of such measurements depending greatly upon the skill and conscientiousness of the man who makes them. Vitellio appears to have been both skilful and conscientious, while Kepler's habit was to rummage through the observations of his predecessors, to look at them in all lights, and thus distil from them the principles which united them. He had done this with the astronomical measurements of Tycho ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... exclaimed the Canadian, "you must let us see first what we can do to fit your honour out a little better. Come, Bibi, let us have supper, and I will try what I can rummage out that may be of use to monsieur. If I can do nothing else, I can at all events furnish him with a ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... man, have been behaving to another, if this was the result of a single evening's interview? The self-reproach was unjustly bestowed; but with that we have nothing to do. She made herself very miserable; and at last went down with a heavy heart to go on with Dante, and rummage up words in the dictionary. All the time she seemed to Miss Monro to be plodding on with her Italian more diligently and sedately than usual, she was planning in her own mind to speak to her father as soon as he returned (and ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... A rummage sale of toys added quite a large sum to the general fund. There was a 5-cent table, a 10-cent table and a ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare

... childhood, what a place! No one of us can fail to recall with a thrill the delights of a rummage in the attic—the joy of pulling from some half-forgotten trunk a wholly forgotten shabby garment, which nevertheless has taken to itself from the stillness of undisturbed years the faint aroma of romance; the rapture of discovering in the ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White

... settled it.... Neither you nor I, nor all the critics in the world, have any trustworthy data that would give them the right to reject such literature. I do not know which are right: Homer, Shakespeare, Lopez da Vega, and, speaking generally, the ancients who were not afraid to rummage in the "muck heap," but were morally far more stable than we are, or the modern writers, priggish on paper but coldly cynical in their souls and in life. I do not know which has bad taste—the Greeks who were not ashamed to describe love as it really is in beautiful nature, or the ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... which I am about to drink, hath restored me beforehand. Gentlemen all, there was mutiny aboard that ship which so providentially sank before your very eyes. For why? The crew, who were pirates, and the captain, who was yonder gentleman, did not agree. The one wished to attack you, board you, rummage you, and slay, after recondite fashions, every mother's son of you; the other demurred,—so strongly, in fact, that his life ceased to be worth a pin's purchase. Indeed, I believe he resigned his captaincy then and there, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... French, many of them works on agriculture, on building, on mining, on the sugar and cotton industries in various parts of the world. There was a large writing-table of lacquer-work, on which stood a movable electric lamp without a shade, in the midst of a rummage of pamphlets and papers. Near it were a coffee-table and two deep arm-chairs. From the ceiling, which was divided into compartments painted in dark red and blue, hung a heavy lamp by a chain of gilded silver. A stick of incense burned in a gilded holder. The dining-room, on the other ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... hope of that," said Jack. "In ten minutes we shall be prisoners. By-the-bye, I turned all my gold into this chest. If the Frenchmen find it they'll keep it, so I'll fill my pockets again, and they may not think of looking into them, but they're sure to rummage ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... offer the rest. But I'll tell you what I will do, Ted. If you will promise not to go into my rooms and rummage once while I am gone, and not to touch my wheel, I'll buy you a tandem, and then you can ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... whispered sibilantly. "We'll have a tag day and a rummage sale and I'll get up a dicker party and ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson

... needs cleaning out and rearranging, for the dust flies up as I rummage among the papers and letters that are a blending of past, present, and future. All my pet pens are rusty, and must be replaced from the box of stubs, for a stub pen assists one to straightforward, truthful expression, while a fine point suggests evasion, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... drew his companion along toward a group of rocks that rose upon one point of the island; there, after searching for some time, he began to rummage among the brambles, and, in so doing, scratched ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... wistful, light brown eyes to the picture which was the one incongruous touch to the dainty perfection of his octagonal sitting-room. He had bought it at a rummage sale; it was unsigned, and the canvas, overcrowded with figures, had grown sombre and blurred; yet queerly Dickie liked the suggestion of powerful, half-naked men; the foreign quay-side street, with a slatternly woman silent against a doorway, and the clumsy ship straining ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... charmed with it, that he put it into the hands of a friend to translate, who lost it. It has ever since weighed on his mind, and he has made repeated trials to have it found in England. But in vain. He applied to me. I am in hopes, if you will write a line to the booksellers of Philadelphia to rummage their shops, that some of them may find it. Or, perhaps, some of the careful old people of Pennsylvania or New Jersey may have preserved a copy. In the King's cabinet of Natural History, of which Monsieur de Buffon has the superintendence, I observed ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... longer Bray) Is off like a shot away and away, Over the brine To far Palestine, To rummage and hunt over Ascalon plain For the unburied bones of his victim slain. "Look out, my Squire, Look nigher and nigher, Look out for the corpse of a bare-footed Friar! And pick up the arms and the legs of the dead, And pick up his body and pick ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... Bea said, easily. "Of course Steve's a wonderful old dear and all that—I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it." She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined basket ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... looking at the plank with a knowing frown. A rummage through the old corner cupboard where the provisions were kept provided him with a wide strip of bacon rind, such as Uncle Billy used to rub on his saw. John Jay carried it out of doors and carefully rubbed the plank from one end to the other. Then he greased the underside of the little board ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston

... a gentleman, returning from the wars, has found that his heart's treasures have gone to rummage sales, and—you know the story of the man who bought his dress suit ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... me in surprise, growled something through his teeth, and began to rummage in his portmanteau. Out he drew a writing-book and threw it contemptuously on the ground; then a second—a third—a tenth shared the same fate. There was something childish in his vexation, and it struck me as ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... once I get my claw into her back; by the very body of Christ, I will lead her such a dance that she will run after me, as the madwoman after her child.' 'Ay,' rejoined Bruno, 'I warrant me thou wilt rummage her; methinketh I see thee, with those teeth of thine that were made for virginal jacks,[433] bite that little vermeil mouth of hers and those her cheeks, that show like two roses, and after eat her ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... as near them when under sail as possible, provided this can be done with safety and propriety. But when the East Indiamen come to anchor the cruisers are also to anchor near them, and compel all boats and vessels coming from them to bring-to in order to be examined. They are "then to proceed to rummage such boats and vessels. And if any goods are found therein they are to be seized, together with the boats in which they are found." The importance of this very plain instruction is explained by the further statement that "some of the commanders of the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... was talking about M. de Gery, the Nabob's young secretary, who often comes to the Territoriale, where he does nothing but rummage among the books. Very polite certainly, but a very proud youngster who does not know how to make the most of himself. There was nothing but a chorus of maledictions against him around the table. Even M. Louis delivered ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... is curious. I was just telling the young ones about an adventure of my youth, when Gonsales Zarco touched there on his way to Madeira. With your good permission I will leave you for a few minutes and rummage in an old sea-chest, and see whether there is any flotsam in it to compare ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... think I have found something that will answer much better. The sorrow that I felt for you made me rummage in my head to find some means of getting you out of trouble; for I cannot bear to see kind fathers a prey to grief without feeling sad about it, and, besides, I have at all times had the greatest regard ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere

... you like," said the Tenor, much amused. And thinking the Boy would enjoy himself best if he were left to rummage at his own sweet will, he took up a book, brushed his hand back over his shining hair, and was soon absorbed, But presently he was startled by a wild cry of distress from the kitchen, and, jumping up hastily, he went to see what was ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... by leaving some of my possessions under her care—some books that I knew she would like to read, and other treasures that I had locked up in my wardrobe. Jill had the key and could rummage if she liked, but she told me quite seriously that it would comfort her to come and look at them sometimes. 'It will feel as though you were coming back some day, Ursie,' she ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... lying. [Ernest gives vent to a low whistle.] Said I didn't know what had become of that yellow poplin with the black lace flounces, that they've had altered for me. Found out that I'd given it to old Mother Potts for the rummage sale at the Vicarage. Jane was down there. Bought it in for half ...
— Fanny and the Servant Problem • Jerome K. Jerome

... Ruthlessly she began to rummage Edith's treasure trunk. The other came to her assistance after a dazed interval. The ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... hungry young men sat down to their morning meal with a hearty goodwill. The host began to rummage among his correspondence, and finally extracted an unstamped note, which he opened. His face brightened as he read, and he laid it down with a broad smile ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... Dave began to rummage. At last he got down into the body of the wagon. With the rays of the lantern thus concealed, the other ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock

... for a new novel that happened to be literature than they would dream of paying four-and-sixpence for a cigar, sent down to the offices of the English Review for complete sets of back numbers at half a crown a number, so that they could rummage without a moment's delay among the earlier chapters in search of tit-bits according to their singular appetite. Such was the London which calls itself literary and political! A spectacle to encourage cynicism! Rumour had a wonderful ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... "I vote that as we're pretty safe, and have yet that piece of plunder, we set to work and cook it, for I'm devilish hungry, and so I think we must all be, seeing as how we hain't had a regular meal the whole day, besides if we rummage the place, we may chance to light upon somethin' else. I see the varmint have carried off the nice row of venison hams that used to hang up round the chimney, but there may be ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... it was evening they pitched their camp down in the plain fields amidst tall elmtrees, and had their banners still flying over the tents to warn all comers of what they were. But the next morning the chapmen and their folk were up betimes to rummage their loads, and to array their wares for the market; and they gat not to the road before mid-morning. Meantime of their riding Ralph had more talk with Bull, who said to him: "Fair lord, I rede thee when thou art in the market of Cheaping ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... A swift rummage of the dusty closet set them all sneezing, but they triumphantly brought forth an armful of defunct trousers and carried them up to their room. For the next fifteen minutes such giggles and exclamations ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... Bob arrived with a small keg of water, which he carried down to the landing. Then he went forward again after a bag of biscuit. As the terrified Ah Sing was still burning joss sticks and chattering prayers to his ancestors, Bob had to rummage about for the biscuit himself, but he finally secured a half-emptied bag, which he carried down and deposited on ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... pistol at the coachman's head, muttering lurid threats of what he would do if the coachman drove on. The dismounted man was half inside the coach where two women shrank from him, and thence his blusterous voice proceeded, "Now, my blowens, hand over, or I'll rummage you. A skinny purse? Come, now, you've more than that. What's under your legs, fatty? Stand up, I say. Ay, hand out the jewel-box. Now, my tackle, what ha' you got aboard? What's under that pretty tucker?" He threw the jewel-case out into the mud and, ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... that Mr. St. Claire should ask to leave his keys with me? One would suppose he'd trust his cousin to rummage his goods and ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... sea, when the two Baalbekian lads are snug on deck, their rugs spread out not far from the stalls in which Syrian cattle are shipped to Egypt and Arab horses to Europe or America, they rummage in their bags—and behold, a treat! Shakib takes out his favourite poet Al-Mutanabbi, and Khalid, his favourite bottle, the choicest of the Ksarah distillery of the Jesuits. For this whilom donkey-boy will begin by drinking the wine of these good ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... and Rosenthal shall rummage the German quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies any amount of labor that can be ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... rummage every hold, Smile on the booty of each wealthier chest; And, as the priests who with their gods make bold, Take what they like, and sacrifice ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... But I forgot. I'm ashamed of it, but I forgot. And when I was goin' through the things up attic at my daughter's last Friday, seein' what I could find for the rummage sale at the church, I come across my old writin' desk, and in it was this very piece of paper with the address on it just as I wrote it down. And me startin' for New York in three days! Barzilla, I swan to man, I believe something SENT me to ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... wish to have me at Rosamond's Bower, even though I was unlucky enough not to profit by that wish—some other time, however, you must, for my sake, try again; and I shall then be most ready for a rummage of your Irish treasures. Already, indeed, I have been drawing a little upon your 'Researches in the South of Ireland;' and should be very glad to have more books of yours ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... with us," he said, "one ought to watch the work of these women for an hour. Here they scrub, wash, and brush a house as if it were a person. A house is not cleaned; it has its toilette made. The girls blow between the bricks, they rummage in the corners with their nails and with pins, and clean so minutely that they tire their eyes no less than their arms. Really it is a national passion. These girls, who are generally so phlegmatic, change their character on cleaning day ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... I continued to rummage, finding nothing of importance, however; and towards dusk I came out to see if I might discover Sir George and Magdalen Brant. They were not in sight. I waited for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... always makes me hungry," said Phil. "There's so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be reveling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick. The mere thought reminds me that I'm starving. Is there any tidbit in the ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... bringing on a return of the prickling dismay. The stopping of the paddle-wheels and the rattling clangor of the gang-plank winch aroused him to action and he shook off the creeping numbness and ran aft to rummage under the cargo on the engine-room guards for his precious bundle. When his hand reached the place where it should have been, the blood surged to his brain and set up a clamorous dinning in his ears like the roaring of a cataract. The niche between ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... poor cook, till her face looked as if she was ready to be shaved. His own face looked the same, for he had eaten all he wanted while the pudding stood cooling in the pantry. He had crept out of a window in the closet, and had a fine rummage among ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... lady did was to go to an oak chest which was in the room, and rummage there. With many grunts and wheezes (for she was eaten with rheumatism) she drew out a bundle done up in an old shawl. This she ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... enthusiastic, "well, then, the first thing you have to do is learn how to sell corn salve. Any one that can sell corn salve can sell anything. There's a farmhouse right over there, and I'll give you your first lesson right now. Rummage around in that satchel there under the seat and get me a tin box and ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis

... had accrued in the latter years of the last clergyman's lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest than the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who should then rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature, took the place of the thick and heavy ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... murmuring, "My precious, my chickabiddy!" while Cuckoo banged the hall door and went out into the night. Then the landlady, moved by a sacred impulse of pardon, bolted down to her kitchen and began to rummage enthusiastically in her larder. She knew Cuckoo had been near to starving, and had supported the knowledge with great equanimity while this prodigal daughter chose to wander in wicked ways of idleness. But now she killed the ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... held it out to Cary who came forward as if in a dream. Then the General turned his back again and began to rummage on his ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple

... wrote to say he was unwell, and never came. The number of my inquisitors, 'in domo', was thus reduced to six. They behaved with great rudeness, and executed their mission with a rigour and severity exceedingly painful to my family. They carried their search so far as to rummage the pockets of my old clothes, and even to unrip the linings. All this was done in the hope of finding something that would commit me in the eyes of the new master of France. But I was not to be caught in that way, and before leaving home I had taken such precautions as to set ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... everything around. Our proximity to the shore rendered the circumstance hazardous to us, and it appeared necessary that the vessel's head should be again put seaward; but this the captain was evidently anxious to avoid, as it involved the risk of protracting the voyage. A general rummage for ammunition was therefore ordered, and a supply of this necessary having been obtained, the ship's carronade was after considerable delay put in order, and minute guns were fired. After discharging some thirty rounds or more, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... of the land: - "Our sires of old in Taiarapu, they that created the race, Ate ever with eager hand, nor regarded season or place, Ate in the boat at the oar, on the way afoot; and at night Arose in the midst of dreams to rummage the house for a bite. It is good for the youth in his turn to follow the way of the sire; And behold how fitting the time! for here do I cover my fire." - "I see the fire for the cooking but never the meat to cook," Said Tamatea.—"Tut!" said Rahero. "Here in the brook And there ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the Older Man began to rummage again through all his pockets. "Thank you for your continuous compliments," he mused. "Thank you, I say. Thank you—very much. Now for the very first time, sir, it's beginning to dawn on me just why you have honored me with so much of your company—the past three or four days. I truly ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... morning we unpacked our trunks, and had everything on the floor where we could see it, after the fashion with men. Captain Febiger's baby boy came in to help us rummage in the heaps of canvas clothes, ammunition, and what not besides, finally selecting for his amusement a loaded Colt's revolver and a freshly honed razor. We were terrorized by the possibilities of the combination. Our trying to take them away from the youngster only made him yell like ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington

... to be food in the cupboard," said Breton, beginning to rummage. "They've generally had a good stock of tinned things. Here we are, Spargo—these are tongues and sardines. Make some hot coffee while I open ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... a passport. Of course, it was forged. He had a trolley transfer from Wyndham, Ohio, 'bout a hundred miles west of Cleveland, and, let's see, a hotel bill of the Hotel Bishop in Cleveland. He has a suite there, I guess. I'd like to rummage through his trunk. I tripped him up two or three times, enough to find that he's got a lot of information about army places. Seems to have more of it in his head than he had ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... the foremost savage held the torch over it, and they all gazed in silence into its unfathomable depths. Satisfied that it was impassable, they consulted for a few minutes, and then, apparently coming to the conclusion that the place was untenanted, they returned to the middle cave, and began to rummage and toss about ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... the child ran off, the stout lady began to rummage in her closet, saying, as she rattled ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... it is wrong, as every reader knows, To rummage people's drawers, and wear their clothes; But Topsy is a negro child, you see, Who never learned to read ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown

... of Miss Morley's theatrical property box, apportioned strictly by lot, did not go far among fifty-six girls. Miss Rodgers allowed two of the prefects, with a teacher, to make an expedition into Fossato and rummage the shops for some yards of cheap, gay materials, imitation lace, and bright ribbons, which they were commissioned to buy on behalf of certain of their schoolfellows, but most of the dancers had to contrive their costumes out of just anything that came to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... end of his walking stick, very much to the detriment of Friar Ange, who coughed fit to give up the ghost, swallowing the ashes and coal-dust thrown into his soup plate. And the man in black still continued to rummage in the fire, shouting, "A Salamander! I see a Salamander!" while the stirred-up flames made the shadow of his bodily form tremble on the ceiling like a large ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France

... two hands—or at least with one—pushed the said weasel into your burrow. Which thing he could never have done without your help, and if you had resisted but ever so little he would never have effected his purpose. If his weasel was allowed to rummage in your burrow, that is not his fault, and he ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... would have been unlike him not to have remembered that he had seen children at her house. "Hammy and Berta made great friends with me the other day.... Tell them I haven't forgotten the promise to rummage up some odd native toys I picked up in Rhodesia—made of mud and feathers and bits of fur and queerly-shaped seed-pods—the most enchanting collection of birds and beasts that ever came out of the Ark. And the Makalaka have a ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... have been rash to have termed it a man— turning its eye upwards to the place from whence the voice came, answered with a dreadful grin and shaking of its fist, yet presently began to undo a parcel, and rummage in the pockets of a sort of jerkin and pantaloons which it wore, seeking, it appeared, a bunch of keys, which at length it produced, while it took from the pocket a loaf of bread. Heating the stone of the wall, it affixed the torch to it by a ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... unlocked the door, and the darkey disappeared like a flash. He was gone about half an hour, and when he returned he handed Jack the breastpin, which was wrapped in a piece of newspaper. The overseer being away in the field and his cabin unlocked, it was a matter of no difficulty for the darkey to rummage his bureau drawers until he found the object of which he was in search. Whether or not Hanson ever discovered that he had been robbed of the "charm" that gave him such power over Julius, Jack never knew. If he did, ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... hidden away in the wood-shed chamber, and you can imagine under these circumstances, when even the most timid animals are bold, how fierce such a cat as Dinah would be. Unfortunately for Bruno he chose this time to rummage in the wood-shed for bones. We did not know how the attack began, but suppose Dinah spied him from above, and made a flying leap, lighting most unexpectedly to him upon his back, for we heard one unearthly yell, and out rushed Bruno with his unwelcome burden, her tail erect, her eyes two ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... unable to endure any longer the sharp pangs of hunger, Janina began to look around her room for something which she might sell. She began feverishly to rummage in her trunks. She had only ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... soldiers and sailors. Count me in, girls, and you'll find me at the Liberty Shop early and late, where I promise to sell anything from an old hoopskirt to a decayed piano at the highest market price. We've had some 'rummage sales' in Washington, you know, but nothing to compare with this thorough and businesslike undertaking of yours. But I won't wear your uniform; I can't afford to allow the glorious red-white-and-blue to look dowdy, as it would on ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... are hunting down an innocent man," cried Paula with a deep sigh; and she sat down again in front of her toilet-table to finish dressing. Her hands still moved mechanically, but she was lost in thought; she answered the child vaguely, and let her rummage in her open trunk till Mary pulled out the necklace that had been bereft of its gem, and hung it round her neck. Just then there was a knock at the door and Katharina, the widow Susannah's little daughter, came into the room. The young girl, to whom the governor's wife wished to marry her tall ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... bookshop, kept by an old snuffy spectacled German in a long shabby black coat. I remember him well because he was a very important person to me. It was the first shop of the kind I had seen—I doubt if there was another in the town; and to be allowed to rummage by the hour among this mass of old books on the dusty shelves and heaped on the brick floor was a novel and delightful experience. The books were mostly in Spanish, French, and German, but there were some in English, ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... coming up to the Grange, we might have a rehearsal this afternoon, rummage up the properties, and all the rest ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... just him. I've discovered one under the bed, but the other has disappeared, gone, skedaddled. Do rummage around and find it for me, won't ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... more to be said, and it is always so difficult to turn up the splice neatly at the edges. On this account there are regular models for ending a book or a Poem, as there are for beginning one; but, for my part, I think the best way of ending a book is to rummage about among one's manuscripts till one has found a bit of Fine Writing (no matter upon what subject), to lead up the last paragraphs by no matter what violent shocks to the thing it deals with, to introduce a row of asterisks, and then to paste ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... Agnes, May 6. MY DEAR FRIEND: You asked me to write to you often and to tell you in particular about the things I might see. You also begged me to rummage among my recollections of travels for some of those little anecdotes gathered from a chance peasant, from an innkeeper, from some strange traveling acquaintance, which remain as landmarks in the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... been in the ship on a previous voyage, he manages to work a passage through the hold to the after part right under the cuddy; and from there my gentleman, if you please, makes his way on deck again through the hatchway in the captain's cabin, not forgetting to rummage the steward's pantry for provisions when ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... minutes of my stay I felt a desire, one I had never known before, to rummage in the old Louis XV bookcase that stood near my bed. There among the volumes in their century-old bindings, where the worms, never disturbed, slowly bored their galleries, I found a book made of thick rough old-fashioned paper, and this I opened carelessly. . . . In it I read, ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... pilot when we had the Scilly Islands over the taffrail, and Mr. Poke took command of the vessel in good earnest. Coming down channel, he had done little more than rummage about in the cabin, examine the lockers, and make his foot acquainted with the anatomy of poor Bob, as the cabin-boy was called; who, judging from the amount of the captain's practice, was admirably well ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper



Words linked to "Rummage" :   fuddle, hunt, ransacking, mare's nest, welter, muddle, jumble, search, hunting, clutter, smother, rummage sale



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