When I went to Google-News just now to look up something, this item from The Scotsman caught my eye at the top of the page:

quote:

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PRESIDENT George Bush and Senator John Kerry meet for their first presidential debate tonight, but those hoping for a rip-roaring, rumbustious clash will be disappointed: lawyers have seen to that.

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The dictionary said that rumbustious is an alteration of robustious. For the former, but not the latter, it said "chiefly British."

Great words, but I've never heard of either of them. Have you?

...... seems closely related to rambunctious.

Rumbustuous is not all that common a word here but would not be considered eccentric or arcane. Most reasonably well-spoken people would use or hear it without comment.

This word seems like it should go into that list of "words that sound dirty but aren't."

Jerry, the dictionary does say that it has been influenced by "rambunctious." It's an interesting word. I haven't heard it before, but I love it!

Caterwauller, did you see that wordcrafter had a thread of words that sound dirty and aren't? They were quite fun!

Kalleh,
Is this the thread to which you refer? Yes! I've seen this! That's what made me think of it!

That's it!