Rowdy

How to spell rowdy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce rowdy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rowdy mean?

1. adjectiveNoisy, boisterous, and inclined to cause disorder.
2. nounA rough, disorderly person inclined to cause trouble.

Rowdy in a sentence

• adjective

  The rowdy crowd outside the pub kept the neighbours awake.

• noun

  The bouncer ejected one persistent rowdy from the bar.

• adjective

  The teacher struggled to settle a rowdy class after lunch.

• noun

  A lone rowdy was hurling abuse at passing cars.

Where does rowdy come from?

Language of origin: Other

Rowdy first appears in early 1800s American English, where it began life as a noun for a rough, lawless backwoodsman or street tough before settling into its modern role as an adjective. The most widely accepted explanation links it to the older English word 'row', meaning a noisy quarrel or commotion, with the playful ending '-dy' tacked on, much as in 'dowdy'. The original sense was distinctly frontier American: a rowdy was a brawler who started trouble, and the word carried a whiff of the rougher edges of nineteenth-century town life. Over time the noun softened and the adjective took over, so that today we mostly describe noisy crowds, boisterous children, or unruly parties as rowdy rather than calling a single ruffian a rowdy. Because the spelling simply reflects 'row' plus '-dy', the only real trap is remembering that the 'ow' is the same vowel cluster as in 'how', not the long 'o' of 'mow'.

How the word is built

• row (a noisy disturbance)
• -dy (adjective-forming ending)