Dictionary

rumbullion en · NOUN · etymology 1

Etymology

Uncertain. The forms rhum and rumbustion appear around the same time.

Meanings

1. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) Synonym of rum, an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, similar spirits.
   • ...the chiefe fudling they make in the Island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Devill, and this is made of suggar canes distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor. c. 1651, "A Briefe Description of the Island of Barbados" in Trinity College MS G4, p. 15
   • Now, if there be six Coppers, the first two are thinnest and biggest, in which the juyce is first boiled; but not by a very strong fire, for that will make the Scum to rise, by casting in Temper, as they call it: the first of which that ariseth is little worth; but afterwards, what is scum'd off, they make a very good drink of, called Locus-Ale, much used by the servants; or else they convey it into a Copper-Still (as they do all their other setlings and dregs of Sugar) to be distill'd, and make a sort of Strong-Water they call Rum, or Rum-bullion, stronger then Spirit of Wine, and not very pleasant, until a man is used to it. This strong liquor is ordinarily drank amongst the Planters, as well alone, as made into Punch. 1672, William Hughes, The American Physitian..., pages 33-34:

Forms

Deriveds

rum

Synonyms

rum

rumbullion en · NOUN · etymology 2

Etymology

From French Rambouillet, a town between Paris and Chartres in France. Doublet of Rambouillet.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) A kind of peach.
2. (obsolete) A kind of gooseberry.

Forms

rumbullion en · NOUN · etymology 3

Etymology

Uncertain but probably related to rumbustious (“unruly”), itself likely a variant of robustious (“robust, large, noisy, violent”), from robust + -ious, q.v.

Meanings

1. (Devon, archaic, dialectal) A great tumult.
   • When Jim brought the bride home from church that Rufus got hold of a gun and fired it off up chimney, and down come the soot, bushels of it! All over the room, and a chimney-pot burst and rattled down the tiles into a prambulator. What a rumbullion that was! 1925 July, Alfred Edgar Coppard, “The Field of Mustard”, in The Dial, volume 79, page 52:

Forms