rumbullion

English

Uncertain. The forms rhum and rumbustion appear around the same time.

rumbullion (countable and uncountable, plural rumbullions)

(obsolete) Synonym of rum, an alcoholic beverage distilled from sugarcane, similar spirits.
- c. 1651, "A Briefe Description of the Island of Barbados" in Trinity College MS G4, p. 15]:
  ...the chiefe fudling they make in the Island is Rumbullion, alias Kill-Devill, and this is made of suggar canes distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor.
- 1672, William Hughes, The American Physitian..., pp. 33–34:
  Now, if there be six Coppers, the first two are thinnest and biggest, in which the juyce is first boiled; but not by a very strong fire, for that will make the Scum to rise, by casting in Temper, as they call it: the first of which that ariseth is little worth; but afterwards, what is scum'd off, they make a very good drink of, called Locus-Ale, much used by the servants; or else they convey it into a Copper-Still (as they do all their other setlings and dregs of Sugar) to be distill'd, and make a sort of Strong-Water they call Rum, or Rum-bullion, stronger then Spirit of Wine, and not very pleasant, until a man is used to it. This strong liquor is ordinarily drank amongst the Planters, as well alone, as made into Punch.

From French Rambouillet, a town between Paris and Chartres in France. Doublet of Rambouillet.

rumbullion (plural rumbullions)

Uncertain but probably related to rumbustious (“unruly”), itself likely a variant of robustious (“robust, large, noisy, violent”), from robust + -ious, q.v.

rumbullion (plural rumbullions)

(archaic, Devon dialect) A great tumult.
- 1925 July, Alfred Edgar Coppard, "The Field of Mustard", The Dial, Vol. 79, p. 52:
  When Jim brought the bride home from church that Rufus got hold of a gun and fired it off up chimney, and down come the soot, bushels of it! All over the room, and a chimney-pot burst and rattled down the tiles into a prambulator. What a rumbullion that was!