rigmarole: [18] Rigmarole is a corruption of an earlier ragman roll, a term first encountered in the late 13th century. It denoted a roll of parchment used in a gambling game. The roll had things written on it, such as names, with pieces of string attached to them, and participants had to select a string at random. The word ragman may have been a contraction of ragged man, perhaps in allusion to the appearance of the roll, with all its bits of string hanging from it. Ragman roll eventually came to be used for any ‘list’ or ‘catalogue’, and ragman itself denoted a ‘long rambling discourse’ in 16th-century Scottish English – the meaning which had somehow transferred itself to rigmarole when it emerged in the early 18th century.
rigmarole (n.)
1736, "a long, rambling discourse," apparently from an altered, Kentish colloquial survival of ragman roll "long list or catalogue" (1520s), in Middle English a long roll of verses descriptive of personal characters, used in a medieval game of chance called Rageman, perhaps from Anglo-French Ragemon le bon "Ragemon the good," which was the heading on one set of the verses, referring to a character by that name. Sense transferred to "foolish activity or commotion" by 1939.
双语例句
1. I couldn't be bothered to go through the rigmarole of changing clothes.
我不想再费事儿换衣服了。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Then the whole rigmarole starts over again.
然后，整个漫长复杂的过程又重新开始了。
来自柯林斯例句
3. I couldn't face the whole rigmarole of getting a work permit again.
我无法再次面对获取工作许可证所需的各种冗长复杂的手续。
来自《权威词典》
4. I've never heard such a rigmarole.
我从来没听过像这样的长篇废话.
来自《简明英汉词典》
5. He had to go through the usual rigmarole of signing legal papers in order to complete the business deal.
