Adjective: rum
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | rummer |
| Superlative | rummest |
Perifrastic
Sample Sentences
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having a rum time
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a rum idea; a rum fellow
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"Lor, Noah!" said Charlotte, "What a rum creature you are! Why don't you let the boy alone?" [1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], Oliver Twist; […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:]
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[H]e stared after Pynsent stupidly, and pronounced to the landlord over the counter that he was a rum one. [1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 27, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:]
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The young men had exchanged few observations; but in crossing Union Square, in front of the monument to Washington—in the very shadow, indeed, projected by the image of the pater patriae—one of them remarked to the other, “It seems a rum-looking place.”
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“Ah, very odd, very odd,” said the other, who was the clever man of the two. [1878, Henry James, An International Episode:]
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"Can't you see him?"
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"Well, I almost thought I did—for a moment. It's such a rum light." [1951, C. S. Lewis, Prince Caspian:]
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"But you think he's right?" "Could be. They're rum birds, all right." [1957, Sydney J. Bounds, The Robot Brains, London: Digit Books, page 35:]
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"She's as 'appy as Larry, but she'll neither move nor eat. It's a rum 'un, isn't it?" It was very rum indeed. [1976, James Herriot, All Things Wise and Wonderful, page 346:]
Adjectives inflected like rum
dim,
mim,
bum,
rum,
frum,
grum,
grim,
glam,
glum,
clam,
trim,
prim,
slim,
Etymology
From the earlier form rome (“good”, slang); possibly of Romani origin; compare rom.