raucous

UK/ˈɹɔːkəs/US/ˈɹɔkəs/

adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #11,882 of 15,258neutral

Raucous means loud, rough and disorderly. A crowd enjoying itself a great deal, and not quietly.

It describes laughter, crowds and voices, and raucous laughter is close to a fixed phrase. The word sits between cheerful and out of hand, so a raucous evening was fun and a raucous meeting was a problem. Birds get it too, and the raucous call of a crow is exactly right. The pronunciation is worth noting, since it rhymes with caucus and not with cautious.

Definitions of raucous

1adjectiveraucousLoud, harsh and disorderly.C1
“There was raucous laughter from the public bar.”

Where it comes from

Latin
raucus — hoarse, husky, raucous
English, today
raucous

Borrowed from Latin raucus (“hoarse, husky, raucous”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 39 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

raucous in the wild

Wetting-down is a raucous ceremony for newly promoted officers observed in the U.S. and Royal navies, and the U.S.
Wetting-down
The raucous toad (Sclerophrys capensis), also known as Ranger's toad, is a species of toad from Southern Africa.
Raucous toad
Tyler Glasnow of the visiting Rays later said that the raucous Oakland Coliseum was the loudest environment he had ever been in.
2019 American League Wild Card Game
Named as a reference to the band's "notoriously raucous" live shows during the 1980s, Loud & Dangerous draws heavily on material from early L.A.
Loud & Dangerous: Live from Hollywood

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the raucus family

ruckus raucous

raucous — used about once every 10,786 pages · #11,882 · point at the bar for the others

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