The story
- Middle Dutch · derived fromranten“to rant, babble, goof around”
- Dutch · borrowed fromranten
- English todayrant
From Dutch ranten, randen (“to talk nonsense, rave”), from Middle Dutch ranten (“to rant, babble, goof around”), of uncertain origin; but apparently related to Middle High German ranzen (“to dance, jump around, frolic”), German ranzen (“to be ardent, be in heat, copulate, mate, ramble, join up”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.