rampant
Rampant means wild or out of control. Unruly children might run rampant at the supermarket, knocking cereal boxes off shelves and thoroughly annoying the customers.
If you're running rampant, you're on a rampage. Both come from the French word ramper meaning "to climb, creep" like an animal on hind legs, paws in climbing-mode, or like wild plants such as the kudzu that ran rampant over an old barn until the entire thing was covered. There can also be rampant wildfires that destroy houses in the Southwest, or robots that run rampant in the lab after the janitor accidentally sets them free.
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occurring or increasing in an unrestrained way
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rearing on left hind leg with forelegs elevated and head usually in profile
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(of a plant) having a lush and unchecked growth
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Vocabulary lists containing rampant
While in hiding with her family in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, 13-year-old Anne Frank kept a diary of her experiences. Published after Anne's death in a Nazi concentration camp, the diary remains a powerful testament to the everyday horrors of the Holocaust.
Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney translates the Old English epic poem about a warrior's battles with a series of monsters.
No time to scour the headlines or watch the news? No problem! We’ve rounded up the top words heard, read, debated, and discussed this week. This was a week of bouncing between extremes. The relaxation of Labor Day was contrasted with the renewed tension brought about by North Korea exhibiting defiance in the face of U.S. and international warnings to cease their nuclear program. The continuing stream of devastating images from a hurricane- ravaged Gulf Coast were balanced somewhat by the pictures of resilience also coming from that region. Finally, popular music is all the more dreary for having lost musician Walter Becker this week, and high art lost one of its geniuses, poet John Ashbery, though we should try to not be too lugubrious about this loss. Take a look back at the week that was, vocabulary style.