rouseaboutn.
/ˈraʊsəbaʊt/, /ˈraʊzəbaʊt/, U.S. /ˈraʊsəˌbaʊt/, Australian English /ˈræɔsəbæɔt/, New Zealand English /ˈræusəbæut/ 1. English regional (south-western). A person who roams around, a gadabout; (also) a person who bustles about. Now rare.Recorded earliest in attributive use.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > manner of action > vigour or energy > [noun] > briskness or activeness > bustle or fuss > one who bustles or fusses
bustlepatea1652
bustler1653
rouseabout1746
stirabout1837
fuss1875
fusser1884
fuss-box1901
society > travel > aspects of travel > travel from place to place > [noun] > without fixed aim or wandering > wandering idly > one who
roilera1450
vaguer15..
gadder?1548
street-gadder1574
gadfly1605
gallopera1693
rouseabout1746
gadabout1757
gadabroad1810
meanderer1887
1746 Exmoor Scolding (ed. 3) i. 5 A rubacrock, rouzeabout, platvooted, zidlemouth'd Swashbucket.
1782 Exmoor Scolding (ed. 9) Gloss. A Rouzabout, a restless Creature never easy at Home, but roaming from Place to Place.
1880 T. Q. Couch Gloss. Words W. Cornwall in Gloss. Cornwall 47/2 She's a regular rousabout.
1888 F. T. Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk. Rouse-about..implies coarseness, roughness, awkwardness, yet withal bustling activity.
2. Australian and New Zealand.
a. A general worker on a farm or sheep station, esp. one employed in a shearing shed. Cf. roustabout n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > sheep-farming > sheep-shearing > [noun] > sheep-shearer > other personnel
rouseabout1861
tar-boy1888
bluetongue1900
broomie1933
society > occupation and work > worker > workers according to type of work > [noun] > odd-job or handyman
factotum1562
Magister factotum1573
Johannes factotum1592
Jack of all trades1618
Tom of all trades1631
John-of-all-trades1639
handyman1742
odd man1743
gimcrack1766
Jack of all work1773
orraman1802
bottle washer1835
Jack1836
odd-jobs man1859
roustabout1862
hob-jobber1873
rouster1882
odd-jobber1886
knockabout1889
orra-loon1895
rouser1896
trouncer1896
leatherneck1898
loppy1898
rouseabout1901
bluetongue2002
1861 H. W. Harper Let. 20 July in Lett. from N.Z. (1914) 54 Shearing..is in full swing, so there are a number of extra men,..shearers, fleece-pickers, wool sorters, and ‘rouse-abouts’.
1890 Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 13/6 The shearers hold themselves as the aristocrats of the shed, and never associate with the ‘rouse-abouts’.
1901 M. Franklin My Brilliant Career xvii. 150 Joe Slocombe, the man who acted as groom and rouseabout, was waiting for me.
1947 D. M. Davin Gorse blooms Pale 81 I'm not letting Joe get buggered about by any bloody fly-by-night rouseabout.
1998 S. Dingo Dingo xv. 183 Reg was a rouseabout, a city boy gone bush for a while, in search of the all-Australian experience.
b. A general worker, esp. one employed to undertake menial tasks; an odd-job man.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > worker > workers according to conditions > [noun] > casual or temporary worker > labouring or unskilled
casual labourer1851
roustabout1862
casualty man1887
strapper1888
togt boy1898
rouseabout1899
1899 Cornhill Mag. Apr. 527 Mowbray was at one of the wheels, Paxton in the engine-room, and I was standing by as deck hand, fireman, and general rouseabout.
1906 E. Dyson Fact'ry 'Ands ii. 15 Billy the Boy, the juvenile rouseabout from the printer's flat.
1951 D. Cusack & F. James Come in Spinner 39 They'll probably stick you in as rouseabouts in a lunatic asylum, seeing the experience you've 'ad 'ere.
2006 J. Brett & A. Moran Ordinary People's Politics ii. 42 Anatole France's story of ‘Our Lady's Juggler’, in which a lowly rouseabout at a monastery felt very inferior to the scholarly monks.
Compounds
C1. General attributive and appositive (chiefly in sense 2a), as rouseabout swiper, rouseabout work, etc.In some quots. passing into adjectival use.figurative in quot. 1884.
ΚΠ
1746 [see sense 1].
1884 Bulletin (Sydney) 28 June 18/3 What Granny would call an ‘embarrassing predicament’, happened recently in the gay rouseabout city of Paris.
1887 J. Farrell How he Died 19 It may be that the rouseabout swiper who rode for the doctor that night Is in Heaven.
1906 F. Sinclair Under North Star & Southern Cross 163 Of the first three [trustees],..marvel of marvels, I (a rouse-about sailor-boy) was the third!
1908 W. R. Ingalls Mineral Industry during 1907 XVI. 407 The average rate of the wages, embracing all classes of labor, is 8s. 9d. per shift, the lowest, or ‘rouse-about’ rate being 8s.
1934 J. Lilico Sheep Dog Mem. 27 [The dogs] would head, lead, huntaway, force and back, though..they were best at rouseabout work.
1974 D. Ireland Burn 49 I stayed with him for a bit and did some rouseabout stuff and got my tucker and a sleep in the feed shed.
2006 Canberra Times (Nexis) 6 May a19 As a kid growing up in Yass, options were a little limited, and when he was put in for some rouseabout work, he stuck with it.
C2.
rouseabout block n. a large snatch block (see snatch-block n.).
ΚΠ
1801 J. J. Moore Brit. Mariner's Vocab. sig. T2v Snatch-block, a block having an opening in one of its sides, wherein to fix the bight of a rope occasionally..This is by some termed a rouse-about block.
1896 P. J. Davies Standard Pract. Plumbing (ed. 4) II. 607/2 The viol blocks and rouse-about blocks are much about the same kind of thing.
1912 Americana 19 at Snatch block Large blocks of this kind are called rouseabout blocks.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
rouseaboutv.
/ˈraʊsəbaʊt/, U.S. /ˈraʊsəˌbaʊt/, Australian English /ˈræɔsəbæɔt/, New Zealand English /ˈræusəbæut/ Australian and New Zealand.
intransitive. To work as a rouseabout (see rouseabout n. 2). Usually in present participle.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > sheep-farming > rear sheep [verb (intransitive)] > herd sheep
shepherdize1654
rouseabout1897
1897 Tocsin (Melbourne) 23 Dec. 6/1 It was grand fun most of the time—rabbit trapping, emu hunting, rouseabouting first and then to the mastership of shearing.
1914 Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 44/2 I never done no shearin'; but I rouseabouted one year in a shed near Muttaburra.
1979 B. Hardy World owes me Nothing 167 He'd left school to go rouseabouting in the sheds.
2008 Herald Sun (Melbourne) (Nexis) 5 Nov. 6 We arrived at our hostess's farm to find that she had been rouseabouting in the woolshed since 7.30am.
Derivatives
ˈrouseabouting n.
ΚΠ
1901 Bull. (Sydney) Story Bk. Biogr. Index p. xxiv Droving, gold-digging, rouseabouting.
1988 More (Auckland) Mar. 29 (caption) Rouseabouting can be an international job.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2011; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1746v.1897