Clamjamfrey is a vivid Scots dialect word for a disorderly mob, rabble, or chaotic jumble of people — the kind of unruly, noisy crowd with neither dignity nor order. It carries a contemptuous or exasperated tone. The word has a wonderful near-onomatopoeic quality that mirrors the chaos it describes. Archaic in contemporary use, it survives in Scottish dialect literature, Burns scholarship, and the speech of anyone who enjoys reaching for expressive Scots vocabulary.
The market descended into a clamjamfrey when the fish prices dropped and every vendor started shouting at once.
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(Scotland) A disordered crowd of people; a mob.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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