roughhouse v.
1. (orig. US) to fight, to beat up; thus rough-houser n., a fighter; rough-housing n.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Tales of the Ex-Tanks 117: ‘Don’t get glad with me,’ said the cop, ‘or I’ll rough-house you up some.’. | |
| ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:iii 154: rough-house, v. To haze good-naturedly; to mob fiercely. ‘They rough-housed him.’ ‘The umpire got rough-housed.’. | |
| Shorty McCabe 103: Sir Peter was a different proposition. I didn’t want to rough-house him. | |
| Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 10 Mar. 53/4: ‘Will I give the boys the office to rough-house the joint?’. | |
| Mutt & Jeff 29 Nov. [synd. cartoon] That’s a good idea of Mutt’s — it will save us from being roughhoused. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Psmith Journalist (1993) 257: Someone had better get busy right quick and do something to stop these guys rough-housing like this. | |
| (con. 1917) Mattock 123: Heresh to th’ ol’ Kansush Kid, champeen rough-houser ’n’ bay’net fighter of the First Platoon! | |
| (con. WW1) Patrol 52: ‘I do know a little about rough-housing’. | |
| Chicago May (1929) 38: I was not allowed to enter there, because I had a bad reputation for rough-housing when things did not suit me. | |
| (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 433: He remembered how [...] they used to wrestle and rough-house like that. | |
| Western Morn. News (Exeter) 13 Aug. 4/4: Defendant started to rough-house the boy [...] hit the boy in the eye with his clenched fist. | |
| (con. 1943–5) To Hell and Back (1950) 173: You’ll get the whole town off limits with this kind of rough-housing. | |
| (con. 1925) A Stone for Danny Fisher 37: I tol’ yuh, no rough-housing. | |
| Real Bohemia 163: Example after example could be offered of roughhousing and worse, brutality, by the police officers. | |
| Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1966) 13: The problem is not so much the drunks, crooks or roughhousers. | |
| Algiers Motel Incident 165: There was a lot of rough-housing. | |
 | Palm Beach Post (FL) 21 May 142/3: [headline] Day-care worker teaches ‘manly’ art of roughhousing. | |
| Official and Doubtful 181: The tweedy official put on a surprising turn of speed to join the policeman in roughhousing a donkey-jacketed intruder out of the main entrance. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 32: He’s going to pure roughhouse it, that’s all it can be. |
2. (orig. US) to behave in a rowdy, boisterous manner; thus rough-housing n. and adj.
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 55: rough-house, v. To put a room in disorder. | |
| Metropolis 57: She’s always wanting to rough-house it [DA]. | |
| ‘A Night in New Arabia’ in Strictly Business (1915) 216: With your college students and professors rough-housing de soda-water stands. | |
| (con. 1900s) S Elmer Gantry 27: Some of these fellows tried to stop a peacable religious assembly — why, they tried to rough-house the Reverend here. | |
| Dames Don’t Care (1960) 98: You’re just a conceited, insolent, rough-housing gorilla. | |
| Kingsblood Royal (2001) 317: We have information there’s a few kids roughhousing around there. | |
| Strangers on a Train (1974) 70: Something swatted him in the back of the head, he turned belligerently, but it was only some fellows rough-housing with one another. | |
| Fields of Fire (1980) 338: They got smashed and rough-housed and forgot all the miseries outside the wire of An Hoa. | |
| Guardian Weekend 3 July 30: I’d love to [...] rough-house with my kids. | |
| Experience 48: A rare bit of three-handed rough-housing with Kingsley. | |
| S.F. Gate on line 31 Oct. 🌐 Three men [...] were charged with misdemeanor public intoxication Friday for allegedly climbing into a pig sty [...] and roughhousing with the pigs. |
3. (US) to enjoy the sleazier aspects of sex; to be a devotee of sado-masochism.
| Homeboy 198: Roughousin trip your trigger? |