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Apr 10, 2026
This week’s theme
Back-formations

This week’s words
alliterate
jell
fly-tip
pettifog
rabble-rouse

rabble-rouse
Liberty Leading the People, 1830
Art: Eugène Delacroix

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rabble-rouse

PRONUNCIATION:
(RAB-uhl-rouz)

MEANING:
verb intr.: To stir up the masses, especially to incite action or change.

ETYMOLOGY:
Back-formation from rabble-rouser, from rabble (mob, pack of animals) + rouse (to excite, awaken), from Middle English rousen (to shake the feathers). Earliest documented use: 1864).

USAGE:
“[In American Fun, John] Beckman considers several famous moments when Americans came together to rabble-rouse for a cause.”
Briefly Noted; The New Yorker; Mar 31, 2014.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much. -William Hazlitt, essayist (10 Apr 1778-1830)

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