rumbles

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of rumble.

   The old furnace rumbles ominously each time the heating cycles on.

   A distant train rumbles through the night, rattling the windowpanes.

   Note

   This is the form that follows he, she, it or a singular noun, and it works both with and without an object. Most often something simply rumbles: a furnace, a train, a game controller vibrating in the hand. With an object it changes meaning. Whoever rumbles a scheme has found out the deceit behind it, and a workshop rumbles small parts to polish them. In slang, a gang that rumbles is fighting.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of rumble.

   The rumbles of the approaching train grew louder by the minute.

   Faint rumbles echoed through the valley long after the explosion.

   Note

   A regular plural that carries every noun meaning of its singular, not only the sound of thunder or an empty stomach. In slang, rumbles are street fights. In a workshop, they are rotating casks that polish small parts, and in older carriage talk they are the servants' seats at the back. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb form, so only its place in the sentence separates "the rumbles began" from "the engine rumbles."

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