Rabble

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: rab=ble

CIDE DICTIONARY

Rabble, n. [Etymol. uncertain.].

 An iron bar, with the end bent, used in stirring or skimming molten iron in the process of puddling.  [1913 Webster]

Rabble, v. t. 

 To stir or skim with a rabble, as molten iron.  [1913 Webster]

Rabble, v. i. [Akin to D. rabbelen, Prov. G. rabbeln, to prattle, to chatter: cf. L. rabula a brawling advocate, a pettifogger, fr. rabere to rave. Cf. Rage.].

 To speak in a confused manner.  [1913 Webster]

Rabble, n. [Probably named from the noise made by it (see Rabble, v. i.) cf. D. rapalje rabble, OF. & Prov. F. rapaille.].

•  A tumultuous crowd of vulgar, noisy people; a mob; a confused, disorderly throng.  [1913 Webster]

  "I saw, I say, come out of London, even unto the presence of the prince, a great rabble of mean and light persons."  [1913 Webster]

  "Jupiter, Mercury, Bacchus, Venus, Mars, and the whole rabble of licentious deities."  [1913 Webster]
•  A confused, incoherent discourse; a medley of voices; a chatter.  [1913 Webster]

The rabble, the lowest class of people, without reference to an assembly; the dregs of the people. “The rabble call him ‘lord.'” Shak.

Rabble, a. 

 Of or pertaining to a rabble; like, or suited to, a rabble; disorderly; vulgar.  Dryden.  [1913 Webster]

Rabble, v. t. 

•  To insult, or assault, by a mob; to mob; as, to rabble a curate.  Macaulay.  [1913 Webster]

  "The bishops' carriages were stopped and the prelates themselves rabbled on their way to the house."  [1913 Webster]
•  To utter glibly and incoherently; to mouth without intelligence.  Foxe.  [1913 Webster]
•  To rumple; to crumple.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Rabble, n.
1 a disorderly crowd; a mob.
2 a contemptible or inferior set of people.
3 (prec. by the) the lower or disorderly classes of the populace.

Idiom

rabble-rouser a person who stirs up the rabble or a crowd of people in agitation for social or political change. rabble-rousing adj. tending to arouse the emotions of a crowd.
--n. the act or process of doing this.

Rabble, n. an iron bar with a bent end for stirring molten metal etc.

Etymology

F r{acirc}ble f. med.L rotabulum, L rutabulum fire-shovel f. ruere rut- rake up

DEVIL DICTIONARY

Rabble

n. In a republic, those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections. The rabble is like the sacred Simurgh, of Arabian fable -- omnipotent on condition that it do nothing. (The word is Aristocratese, and has no exact equivalent in our tongue, but means, as nearly as may be, "soaring swine.")

THESAURUS

Rabble

and bobtail, army, bourgeoisie, canaille, cluster, cohue, common ruck, commonalty, commoners, crowd, crush, deluge, dregs, dregs of society, flock, flood, galaxy, gang, heap, hoi polloi, horde, host, jam, legion, lower classes, many, mass, masses, mob, mod, multitude, other half, outcasts, panoply, peasantry, people, polloi, populace, press, proletariat, public, rabblement, raff, rag, ragtag, ragtag and bobtail, rank and file, riffraff, rout, ruck, scum, scurf, spate, swarm, tag, the great unwashed, throng, trash, unwashed, vermin

ROGET THESAURUS

Rabble

Assemblage

N assemblage, collection, collocation, colligation, compilation, levy, gathering, ingathering, muster, attroupement, team, concourse, conflux, congregation, contesseration, convergence, meeting, levee, reunion, drawing room, at home, conversazione, assembly, congress, convention, conventicle, gemote, conclave, posse, posse comitatus, Noah's ark, miscellany, collectanea, museum, menagerie, museology, crowd, throng, group, flood, rush, deluge, rabble, mob, press, crush, cohue, horde, body, tribe, crew, gang, knot, squad, band, party, swarm, shoal, school, covey, flock, herd, drove, atajo, bunch, drive, force, mulada, remuda, roundup, array, bevy, galaxy, corps, company, troop, troupe, task force, army, regiment, host, populousness, clan, brotherhood, fraternity, sorority, association, volley, shower, storm, cloud, group, cluster, Pleiades, clump, pencil, set, batch, lot, pack, budget, assortment, bunch, parcel, packet, package, bundle, fascine, fasces, bale, seron, seroon, fagot, wisp, truss, tuft, shock, rick, fardel, stack, sheaf, haycock, fascicle, fascicule, fasciculus, gavel, hattock, stook, accumulation, congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau, tissue, mass, pyramid, bing, drift, snowball, snowdrift, acervation, cumulation, glomeration, agglomeration, conglobation, conglomeration, conglomerate, coacervate, coacervation, coagmentation, aggregation, concentration, congestion, omnium gaterum, spicilegium, black hole of Calcutta, quantity, collector, gatherer, whip, whipper in, assembled, closely packed, dense, serried, crowded to suffocation, teeming, swarming, populous, as thick as hops, all of a heap, fasciculated cumulative, the plot thickens, acervatim, tibi seris tibi metis.

Commonalty

N commonality, commonalty, democracy, obscurity, low condition, low life, low society, low company, bourgeoisie, mass of the people, mass of society, Brown Jones and Robinson, lower classes, humbler classes, humbler orders, vulgar herd, common herd, rank and file, hoc genus omne, the many, the general, the crowd, the people, the populace, the multitude, the million, the masses, the mobility, the peasantry, king Mob, proletariat, fruges consumere nati, demos, hoi polloi, great unwashed, man in the street, mob, rabble, rabble rout, chaff, rout, horde, canaille, scum of the people, residuum of the people, dregs of the people, dregs of society, swinish multitude, foex populi, trash, profanum vulgus, ignobile vulgus, vermin, riffraff, ragtag and bobtail, small fry, commoner, one of the people, democrat, plebeian, republican, proletary, proletaire, roturier, Mr, Snooks, bourgeois, epicier, Philistine, cockney, grisette, demimonde, peasant, countryman, boor, carle, churl, villain, villein, terrae filius, son of the land, serf, kern, tyke, tike, chuff, ryot, fellah, longshoreman, swain, clown, hind, clod, clodhopper, hobnail, yokel, bog-trotter, bumpkin, plowman, plowboy, rustic, hayseed, lunkhead, chaw-bacon, tiller of the soil, hewers of wood and drawers of water, groundling, gaffer, loon, put, cub, Tony Lumpkin, looby, rube, lout, underling, gamin, rough, pot- wallopper, slubberdegullion, vulgar fellow, low fellow, cad, curmudgeon, upstart, parvenu, skipjack, nobody, nobody one knows, hesterni quirites, pessoribus orti, bourgeois gentilhomme, novus homo, snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer, man of straw, beggar, gaberlunzie, muckworm, mudlark, sans culotte, raff, tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian, panhandler, sundowner, chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench, scrub, jade, gossoon, Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, Yahoo, unlicked cub, rough diamond, barbarousness, barbarism, boeotia, ignoble, common, mean, low, base, vile, sorry, scrubby, beggarly, below par, no great shakes, homely, homespun, vulgar, low-minded, snobbish, plebeian, proletarian, of low parentage, of low origin, of low extraction, of mean parentage, of mean origin, of mean extraction, lowborn, baseborn, earthborn, mushroom, dunghill, risen from the ranks, unknown to fame, obscure, untitled, rustic, uncivilized, loutish, boorish, clownish, churlish, brutish, raffish, rude, unlicked, barbarous, barbarian, barbaric, barbaresque, cockney, born within sound of Bow bells, underling, menial, subaltern, below the salt, dummodo sit dives barbarus ipse placet.