Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To wrinkle or form into folds or creases.
  • intransitive verb To make unkempt or untidy.
  • intransitive verb To become wrinkled or creased.
  • intransitive verb To become unkempt or untidy.
  • noun An irregular or untidy crease.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To wrinkle; make uneven; form into irregular inequalities.
  • noun A wrinkle; a fold; a ridge.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To make uneven; to form into irregular inequalities; to wrinkle; to crumple.
  • noun A fold or plait; a wrinkle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To make wrinkled, particularly of fabric.
  • verb To muss.
  • verb To tousle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb to gather something into small wrinkles or folds
  • verb disturb the smoothness of
  • verb become wrinkled or crumpled or creased

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps Dutch rompelen, from Middle Dutch rumpelen.]

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Examples

  • I've got nary a line on my face and I'm now free to secretly eye the fissures that have started to rumple my friends 'faces.

    Verena von Pfetten: Tan Is The New Tacky Verena von Pfetten 2010

  • She smiled to herself at vagrant impulses which arose from nowhere and suggested that she rumple his hair; while he desired greatly, when they tired of reading, to rest his head in her lap and dream with closed eyes about the future that was to be theirs.

    Chapter 20 2010

  • Feel us rumple through all that it's got: bed spreads, shower curtain, taste like apple bear claws from the continental breakfast: Philly cream cheese in foot-long foil squeeze.

    Float Like An Asterisk, Sting Like A Mote Dennis Mahagin 2011

  • I've got nary a line on my face and I'm now free to secretly eye the fissures that have started to rumple my friends' faces.

    Verena von Pfetten: Tan Is The New Tacky Verena von Pfetten 2010

  • May 9, 2010 at 3:48 am ai alwais tells zeekie “nao yoo no hao rumple felt”, cos when he wuz yunger, he terrorized mai angel kitteh rumpelteazer something awful! ai no call em bullees, just boystrus!

    why you want candy? - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2010

  • Dresses made in chiffon or silk lie nicer than satin, which tends to rumple in all the wrong places.

    You’re Better Than Your Job Search Marc Cenedella 2010

  • Salon's Stephanie Zacharek admires the lead performance from Alberto Sordi, "an elegant comic actor in the vein of America's William Powell; the world may confound him, but it can never rumple him."

    GreenCine Daily: Mafioso. 2007

  • One questionable choice Crowley and Goldman make is the inclusion of a pair of political reporter stand-ins: Middle-aged, rumple-suited Harlan Jessop, and young, funny hairstyle-having Jason Newbury.

    Review: 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail 2009

  • The outermost 10 km of the glacier is mostly a floating mass of ice except at an ice rumple on the southern edge over a sub-glacial sill.

    Ilulissat Icefjord, Denmark-Greenland 2008

  • At the junction that is created at this point an ice rumple above the center of a sub-glacial sill restricts the main stream to a width of only 4 km.

    Ilulissat Icefjord, Denmark-Greenland 2008

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