Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to discover, to find out, to unmask.

1886–96		Marshall ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ in Pomes 65: I rumbled the tip as a matter of course [F&H].
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 37: Missus, we’re rumbled.
1905		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘They Begged To Differ’ Sporting Times 15 Apr. 1/3: He aspired to wield / A weapon on the tented field — / The cricket field, you rumble.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 248: Oh, your sort are common enough! I can rumble you without looking at you.
1914		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 8 Apr. 3/2: Plummers, too, is Influential, / They can get a fakement squared— / Which a bloke do easy rumble / When he finds out how he’s fared .
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 115: There’s a rumour we may pack up again today, but I ’aven’t rumbled anything yet.
1934		Film Fun 8 Sept. 24: He dashed right past old Stan without rumbling just whereabouts he was.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 169: The tailer knows that the mark has been ‘rumbled.’.
1947		G. Fairlie Bulldog Drummond Stands Fast 87: My God! [...] Rumbled! [...] I need a drink!
1950		A. Buckeridge Jennings Goes To School 97: Pity he’s rumbled us.
1960		J.R. Ackerley We Think The World Of You (1971) 36: He says other letters often get through without the screws rumbling.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 221: The old girl might find something and rumble us.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 135: ‘I gets rumbled by free fuckin’ coppers and have to do ’em all [...] to get out of the lag’’.
1999		Indep. Rev. 25 June 8: The greeter [...] firmly but politely escorted us out. We had been rumbled.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 225: Theres the 2 teenage boys they done, geezers of tomorrow, who was rumbled as they try to buy sweets an crisps with homemade fake fivers.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 259: The guy was a tout and in my experience touts got rumbled.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] ‘You did a bank over in Alderley. I was one of the plods that rumbled ya’.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 108: Somehow [...] we’ve been rumbled. Campion has ratted us out.

2. (US Und.) to reveal one’s plans, to make a potential victim aware of one’s criminal intentions.

1940

D. Maurer Big Con 270: To rumble To excite a mark’s suspicions.