rumptious

English

Etymology 1

Blend of rump (“the buttocks”) +‎ scrumptious. Compare rumpalicious.

Adjective

rumptious (comparative more rumptious, superlative most rumptious)

1. (nonstandard, humorous) Of a person's buttocks: large, well-shaped.
   • 1986, Miss Martin: Or, an Account of Impassioned Desires Told by an Anonymous but Unhindered Witness Thereto, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, Inc., →ISBN, page 66:

     I am not one to scourge such a rumptious and beautiful arse such as you are quite properly displaying to us now, my dear. Push it out more, and you also, Caroline. More, girls, more! Ah, yes indeed, that is better. What vaselike forms their hips take, do they not, Jonathan?

   • 2006, Norman Kelley, “The Messenger of Soulsville”, in George Pelecanos, editor, D.C. Noir, New York, N.Y.: Akashic Books, →ISBN, page 280:

     Inebriated, she didn't feel a thing, thinking she was being pinched and stroked, when he inserted a small needle into her rumptious tush, putting her soundly to sleep.

   • 2015, David Knox, Body School: A New Guide to Improved Movement in Daily Life, Aachen: Meyer & Meyer Sport, →ISBN, page 83:

     Due to the overwhelming interest—throughout human history, it seems—in this particular feature of our anatomy, I feel, before we look at exercises, a special word must be given to these rumptious rounds of misery and delight.

Etymology 2

From rumption (“an uproar, commotion”) +‎ -ous. Probably related to polrumptious.

Adjective

rumptious (comparative more rumptious, superlative most rumptious)

1. (dialectal) Energetic, rowdy, uproarious.
   • 1896, Florence Marryat, The Strange Transfiguration of Hannah Stubbs, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, page 248:

     But to speak in that rumptious manner! No! I can't never believe it! She was sich a simple one, was our Hannah—allays ready to cry if spoke to, almost a natural as you may say, but never 'aughty or proud.

   • 1919, Jennette Lee, chapter XVI, in The Rain-Coat Girl, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, published 1922, page 101:

     In the inner office behind the closed door John Senior could be heard moving restlessly about. ¶ "Old man's rumptious!" said Fannie over her shoulder. ¶ But John Senior was more than rumptious. He was mad—mad all through at the turn of Fate that had dropped his letter to Moulton into Eben Braithwaite's outstretched hand. . . . He flung himself into a chair and hunched his shoulders and looked at it.

   • 1988, Daniel E. Sutherland, The Confederate Carpetbaggers, Baton Rouge, L.A., London: Louisiana State University Press, →ISBN, page 259:

     In the hands of a skillful writer, the South's colorful cast of genteel aristocrats, coquettish belles, devoted mammies, and rumptious hill folk could be enchanting.

   • 2000, Madeline Macdonald, The Last Year of the Gang, Oxford: ISIS Publishing Ltd, published 2001, →ISBN, page 139:

     They were Sandy, a large Orlando-like chap with what we called a "rumptious" purr and an incurable habit of flexing his claws on your knees when he sat in your lap, and Auntie Kathleen's beloved old Ali Shan.

   • 2001 August 9, Ethel Da Costa, “Monsoon moods”, in The Times of India, Mumbai: Bennet, Coleman & Co., Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5, column 2:

     Now, all one wishes is a long walk on a deserted beach, as the waves leap and howl, pounding the shore to the beat of a rumptious percussion beat. Music and Nature are at play.

Further reading

• Joseph Wright, editor (1905), “RUMPTIOUS, adj.”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume V (R–S), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 183, column 1.