Meanings
- UKhistoricaluncountableImprovised noise created by banging saucepans, scrap metal etc., especially as a way for communities to express outrage or displeasure at someone's behaviour.First known use 18th c.
People suspected of adultery, whoredom, or the like could expect to be awakened in their beds by their peers, making ‘rough music’ outside by clanging pots and pans.
2012, Eric Berkowitz, Sex and Punishment, Westbourne Press, published 2013, page 2033 more examples
Seventeen villagers of Lincolnshire have been fined for ‘rantanning’ […] the ‘rough music’ of kettle and pan, in which the rustic moralist conveys his sense of outraged propriety.
1928 February 26, The ObserverApart from making presentments in the Church courts, villagers had many informal ways of expressing their disapproval of the way a married couple comported themselves: by playing ‘rough music’ under their window, for example […]
1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 507The most common form of punishment was ‘rough music’, or charivari, as it was known in southern Europe, where the villagers made a rumpus outside the house of the guilty person until he or she appeared and surrendered to the crowd, who would then subject him or her to public shame or even violent punishment.
1996, Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy, Folio Society, published 2013, page 108
Synonyms & antonyms
Cite this entry
rough music. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rough%20music
“rough music.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rough%20music. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “rough music,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rough%20music.
Source: rough music on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.