rowdy

• rowdie

Possibly from row (“noisy argument”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹaʊdi/

  • Audio (Southern England)

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• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -aʊdi

rowdy (comparative rowdier, superlative rowdiest)

1. Loud and disorderly; riotous; boisterous.

• unruly
• disorderly

• rowdily
• rowdiness
• rowdyism
• rowdy-sheeter

rowdy (countable and uncountable, plural rowdies)

1. (countable) A boisterous person; a brawler.
   • 2016, Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, Fleet (2017), page 164:

     Carpenter recruited his gang at the saloon, rowdies all. They slept the day, drank well into the evening, and then set off for their pastime.

2. (uncountable, obsolete, slang) money; ready money.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 76, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     I don’t know whether I quite approve of your throwing over Mr. P. for Mr. F., and don’t think Foker’s such a pretty name, and from your account of him he seems a muff, and not a beauty. But he has got the rowdy, which is the thing.

   • 1842, William Leman Rede, The Royal Rake: and the Adventures of Alfred Chesterton, page 25:

     "Where's your money?" Jack exclaimed, hoarsely, in a well-feigned voice.
     "Ah! where's the rowdy?" iterated Clayton, in a tone it was impossible to conceal.
     "I have no money — none — save a few guineas; there — there — in my pocket […]

   • 1855, Charles Godfrey Leland, chapter 22, in Meister Karl's Sketch-Book, Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan, page 166:

     The blessing of the priest converts flesh into fish; the skil of the resataurateur changes pet pussies into favourite dishes; the learning of the consmetic-chemist metamorphoses age into youth; the wisdom of Solomen Isaacs transmogrifies old garments into now; the tact of the lawyer makes the worse appear the better cause; and the magic spell of the ready—otherwise know as money, cash, tin, stuff, rhino, root-of-all-evil, blunt, wherewithal, 'rowdy, funds, stumpy, pecuniary, dibs, hard, browns, heavy, mopusses, slugs, shiners, lucre, or 'the filthy,' dust, gelt, chips, lumps, chinkers, mint-drops, pewter, brass, horsenails, rocks, brads, spondulix, needful, dough, spoons, buttons, dimes, or the infallible— will convert every article and item in that old sole-leather into "duty free."

• brawler
• ruffian

• → German: Rowdy

• dowry, wordy