To rummage means to search through something in a hurried, messy way, often moving things around as you look. When you rummage through your backpack for a lost pencil, you're digging through books, papers, and snacks, shifting everything aside until you find it. When your dad rummages through the garage for a tool, he's probably pulling boxes forward, lifting things up, and creating a bit of chaos in his search.

The word captures that slightly frantic, disorganized quality of searching. You don't rummage when you're calmly looking through a neat drawer. You rummage when you're in a hurry, when things are already jumbled, or when you're not entirely sure where something is. A squirrel might rummage through fallen leaves looking for buried acorns. A shopper might rummage through a bin of sale items hoping to find a bargain.

A rummage sale takes its name from this searching behavior: it's a sale where people rummage through donated items, often piled in boxes or spread across tables, hunting for treasures among the jumble.