rummager


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rum·mage

 (rŭm′ĭj)
v. rum·maged, rum·mag·ing, rum·mag·es
v.tr.
1. To search thoroughly by handling, turning over, or disarranging the contents of.
2. To discover by searching thoroughly.
v.intr.
To make an energetic, usually hasty search.
n.
1. A thorough search among a number of things.
2. A confusion of miscellaneous articles.

[From earlier romage, act of packing cargo, from French arrumage, from Old French, from arumer, to stow, from Old Provençal arumar : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad-) + perhaps run, ship's hold (of Germanic origin; see reuə- in Indo-European roots).]

rum′mag·er n.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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References in classic literature ?
There was no likelihood that the caches would escape the search of such keen eyes and experienced rummagers, and the idea was intolerable that any more booty should fall into their hands.
McDonnell describes the biographical Browning as "a committed rummager," whose work itself resembles a "room or cabinet of curiosities, [in which] objects exist in odd juxtaposition [ranging from] the sought-after to the serendipitous" (69).
And as the rummager digs, the menagerie merges to reveal who the collector is.
I'm not a rummager." Tonight: Street Market Chefs, Five, 7.30pm.