rumble seat
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈrʌm.bəl siːt/
- Archaic
:
asiento de rumble
- So lock up the office, take down the top... and open that rumble seat!
- the rumble seat of a car
Examples
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The vintage car model features a classic rumble seat that allows extra passengers to enjoy the ride.
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Ah, today's reckless youth... with your fast roadsters and your rumble seats.
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This car does not have a rumble seat like the other Fords.
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It's a roaster rumble seat, which means it's got the seat back here all nice and clean and ready to rock.
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It had two front seats and a rumble seat.
Fiction book (1993) -
There was Adger Eggar in his black Chevrolet and Bill Johnson in the little Ford with the rumble seat.
Fiction book (1999) -
On sunny days, my friends and I loved to sit in the car's rumble seat while driving through the countryside.
-
In the 1950s, many families enjoyed taking road trips with their children sitting in the rumble seat during summer vacations.
Synonyms
2
5.3
A small folding seat in a vehicle used for extra passengers
A small folding seat at the back of an old two-seater car
A small extra folding seat at the back of a two-seat car often open to the weather
A small fold-out seat at the back of an old two-seat car
A small fold-out seat at the back of an old two-seat car
How Protected
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense is directly compositional: 'rumble' (here given as a folding rear seat or luggage space) combined with 'seat' yields the concept of a rear/folding seat. There is no idiomatic or metaphorical shift, so a learner who knows both constituent meanings can infer the MWE, though the term is somewhat archaic.
Etymology
The name rumble seat may come from the loud rumble of early car engines and the open seat set at the back of the car. People sitting there felt the noise and wind, so the phrase came to mean 'an external rear seat'.