Definition
adjRearing on both hind legs with the forelegs extended.
adjRearing up, especially on its hind leg(s), with a foreleg raised and in profile.
Sentence Examples
Fiscal austerity is considered to be an answer to the rampant inflation.
There are many latent gays among rampant homophobes.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English rampand, rampend, present participle of rampen (“to rise by climbing, shoot up, sprout, sty, ascend”), from Old French ramper (“to creep, climb”) (see below), equivalent to ramp + -and or ramp + -ant. Recorded since 1382, "standing on the hind legs" (as in heraldry), later, "fierce, ravenous" (1387). Compare Scots rampand (“rampant”).
Alternatively from Middle English *rampant, from Old French rampant, the present participle of ramper (“to creep, climb”), equivalent to ramp + -ant. Old French ramper derives from Frankish *rampōn, *hrampōn (“to hook, grapple, climb”), from *rampa, *hrampa (“hook, claw, talon”), from Proto-Germanic *hrempaną (“to curve, shrivel, shrink, wrinkle”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"‘I forget your coat of arms.’
‘A human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.’"
— 1846, Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado:
"little pieces of moustache on his upper lip, like a pair of minnows rampant"
— 1892, Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved:
"The crest consists of a demi-lion rampant gules (red) holding between its paws a wheel argent similar to those included in the arms."
— 1957 February 26, “B.T.C. Armorial Bearings”, in Railway Magazine, page 81:
"Conditions were horrendous aboard most British naval vessels at the time. Scurvy and other diseases ran rampant, killing more seamen each year than all other causes combined, including combat."
— 2012 March 26, William E. Carter, Merri Sue Carter, “The British Longitude Act Reconsidered”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 87:
"The craze for -ization — a word first employed by Charles Dickens in “Our Mutual Friend” — has been around for a very long time. The patron saint of rampant suffixization is Thomas Nashe, author of the 1593 pamphlet “Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem.” His ebullient creations included myrmidonize, unmortalize, anthropophagize, retranquillize, cabbalize, palpabrize, superficialize and citizenize — not to mention collachrymate, assertionate and intercessionate."
— 2012 October 28, Helen Sword, “Mutant Verbs”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2024, Draft: