rummage [LME] Rummage is a word that has managed to reverse its meaning over time. It was borrowed into English as a noun for the act of arranging cargo in a ship, from French arrumage, which had probably borrowed it from the Dutch rumen, which goes back to the same Germanic root as *room. It is found as a verb for stowing cargo from the mid 16th century. By the beginning of the 17th century it had also acquired the sense ‘to make a thorough search of a ship’, and from there it quickly developed the sense of to search untidily or unsystematically.