Romage

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. An obsolete term for a noisy bustle or stir of activity ; an old verb meaning to search carefully through a jumbled pile of belongings
2. A dated word for a tumult or hurried commotion ; a former way of saying to dig about and search through a disordered heap of items
3. An archaic noun describing a flurry of noisy activity ; a historical verb for rooting around and sifting through cluttered possessions

Etymology: "Romage" is an obsolete spelling of "rummage", and the story of "rummage" begins on ships. Its ancestor was a nautical term for stowing cargo in a vessel's hold, so that heavy goods sat securely and nothing shifted in rough seas. The Old French "arrumer" meant to arrange the cargo in the hold, and the related noun "arrumage" referred to that work of stowing. Over time the word moved from the ship's hold to the wider business of digging through goods. Someone searching a crowded hold for a particular item had to pull out and rearrange everything, and that effort gave the verb its modern sense of searching thoroughly through belongings. The earlier form "ronage" in Middle English shows the word already bending toward the spelling it would later take.

Synonyms: rummage, search, forage