To rumple means to wrinkle, crease, or mess up something that was smooth or neat. When you sit on your bed after your mom made it perfectly smooth, you rumple the covers. When you stuff a nice shirt into your backpack instead of folding it, it gets all rumpled.

The word usually describes fabric or clothing, but you can rumple paper, hair, or anything that can get creased or disheveled. Picture grabbing a sheet of tissue paper and scrunching it in your fist: that's rumpling. Or imagine waking up with your hair sticking out in every direction after sleeping hard, your pillow having thoroughly rumpled it during the night.

Rumpled describes the resulting messy state. A detective in a mystery novel might wear a rumpled suit, suggesting he's been working so hard on the case that he hasn't had time to worry about looking neat. Sometimes rumpled things have a comfortable, lived-in quality, like your favorite worn T-shirt. Other times, like before a school picture, rumpled is exactly what you don't want to look.