different between rhapsodize vs ramble

English

Alternative forms

• rhapsodise (Commonwealth)

Etymology

rhapsody +? -ize.

Verb

rhapsodize (third-person singular simple present rhapsodizes, present participle rhapsodizing, simple past and past participle rhapsodized)

1. (intransitive) To speak with exaggerated or rapturous enthusiasm (about, (up)on or over something).

   Synonym: rave

   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 22,^[1]

     The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! […] You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain.

   • 1900, Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel, Chapter 12,^[2]

     How can one rhapsodise over a view when surrounded by beer-stained tables? How lose one’s self in historical reverie amid the odour of roast veal and spinach?

   • 1929, Virginia Woolf, “Phases of Fiction” in Leonard Woolf (ed.), Granite and Rainbow: Essays by Virginia Woolf, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958, pp. 107-108,

     The Mysteries of Udolpho have been so much laughed at as the type of Gothic absurdity that it is difficult to come at the book with a fresh eye. We come, expecting to ridicule. Then, when we find beauty, as we do, we go to the other extreme and rhapsodize.

   • 2003, J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, New York: Scholastic, 2003, Chapter 9, p. 170,

     Ron was rhapsodizing about his new broom to anybody who would listen.

2. (transitive) To say (something) with exaggerated or rapturous enthusiasm.
   • 1896, Abraham Cahan, Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto, New York: Appleton, Chapter 5,^[3]

     “It’s a long time since I tasted such a borshtch! Simply a vivifier! It melts in every limb!”" he kept rhapsodizing, between mouthfuls. “It ought to be sent to the Chicago Exposition. The missess would get a medal.”

   • 1923, Crosbie Garstin, The Owl’s House, New York: A.L. Burt, Chapter 22,^[4]

     “Listen, my pearl,” he rhapsodized. “I have money now and you shall have dresses like rainbows, a gold tiara and slave girls to wait on you […] ”

3. (transitive) To recount or describe (something) as a rhapsody, or in the manner of a rhapsody.
   • 1762, Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, London: T. Becket and P.A. Dehondt, Volume 6, Chapter 21, p. 90,^[5]

     The campaigns themselves will take up as many books; and therefore I apprehend it would be hanging too great a weight of one kind of matter in so flimsy a performance as this, to rhapsodize them, as I once intended, into the body of the work […]

   • 1982, Seamus Heaney, “Joyce’s Poetry” in Finders Keepers: Selected Prose, 1971-2001, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2002, p. 423,^[6]

     The great poetry of the opening chapter of Ulysses […] amplifies and rhapsodizes the world with an unlooked-for accuracy and transport.

4. (intransitive) To perform a rhapsody.
   • 1824, Lady Morgan, The Life and Times of Salvator Rosa, London: Henry Colburn, Volume 2, Chapter 8, p. 33, footnote,^[7]

     […] Carolan, the last of the Irish bards, rhapsodized in the halls of the O’Connors so lately as the year 1730.

   • 1911, Stephen Leacock, “The Passing of the Poet” in Literary Lapses, London: John Lane, p. 187,^[8]

     Should one gather statistics of the enormous production of poetry some sixty or seventy years ago, they would scarcely appear credible. Journals and magazines teemed with it. Editors openly countenanced it. Even the daily press affected it. Love sighed in home-made stanzas. Patriotism rhapsodized on the hustings, or cited rolling hexameters to an enraptured legislature.

Anagrams

• aphidozers

English

Etymology

An altered form (with dissimilation of mm to mb) of dialectal rammle, from Middle English *ramlen, *ramelen, frequentative of Middle English ramen (“to roam, ramble”); compare Old Swedish rambla (“to make a noise”), Danish ramle (“to stumble; collapse; thunder; boom”); equivalent to roam +? -le.

"mid-15 c., perhaps frequentative of 'romen' 'to walk, go' perhaps via 'romblen' (late 14 c.) 'to ramble.' The vowel change perhaps by influence of Middle Dutch 'rammelen,' a derivative of 'rammen' 'copulate,' 'used of the night wanderings of the amorous cat.' Meaning 'to talk or write incoherently' is from 1630s".

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??æmb?l/
• Rhymes: -æmb?l

Noun

ramble (plural rambles)

1. A leisurely stroll; a recreational walk in the countryside.
2. A rambling; an instance of someone talking at length without direction.
3. (mining) A bed of shale over the seam of coal.
4. A section of woodland suitable for leisurely walking.

Translations

Verb

ramble (third-person singular simple present rambles, present participle rambling, simple past and past participle rambled)

1. To move about aimlessly, or on a winding course
2. To walk for pleasure; to amble or saunter.
3. To lead the life of a vagabond or itinerant; to move about with no fixed place of address.
4. To talk or write incessantly, unclearly, or incoherently, with many digressions.

5. To follow a winding path or course.

Synonyms

• (talk or write unclearly, or incoherently): drivel, sperg

Translations

References

Further reading

• ramble in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• ramble in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• ramble at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Ambler, Balmer, Blamer, Marble, ambler, blamer, lamber, marble