rummage

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To search thoroughly by handling, turning over, or disarranging the contents of.
• intransitive verb To discover by searching thoroughly.
• intransitive verb To make an energetic, usually hasty search.
• noun A thorough search among a number of things.
• noun A confusion of miscellaneous articles.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To adjust the roomage or capacity of (a ship) with reference to the cargo; arrange or stow the cargo of (a ship) in the hold; especially, to clear by the removal of goods: as, to rummage a ship.
• To move to and fro the contents of, as in a search; ransack; hunt through; explore: as, to rummage a trunk.
• To set in motion; stir; hence, specifically, to mix by stirring or some other form of agitation: as, to rummage a liquid.
• To bring to light by searching.
• To arrange or stow the cargo of a ship in the hold.
• To search narrowly, especially by moving about and looking among the things in the place searched; execute a search.
• To make a stir, bustle, or disturbance.
• noun The act of rummaging, in any sense; the act of searching a place, especially by turning over the contents.
• noun A stirring or bustling about; a disturbance; an upheaval.
• noun Lumber; rubbish. Halliwell. [Prov. Eng.]

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Naut.), obsolete A place or room for the stowage of cargo in a ship; also, the act of stowing cargo; the pulling and moving about of packages incident to close stowage; -- formerly written romage.
• noun A searching carefully by looking into every corner, and by turning things over.
• noun a clearance sale of unclaimed goods in a public store, or of odds and ends which have accumulated in a shop.
• intransitive verb To search a place narrowly.
• transitive verb (Naut.), obsolete To make room in, as a ship, for the cargo; to move about, as packages, ballast, so as to permit close stowage; to stow closely; to pack; -- formerly written roomage, and romage.
• transitive verb To search or examine thoroughly by looking into every corner, and turning over or removing goods or other things; to examine, as a book, carefully, turning over leaf after leaf.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• verb transitive, nautical to arrange (cargo, goods, etc.) in the hold of a ship; to move or rearrange such goods.
• verb transitive, nautical to search a vessel for smuggled goods.
• verb transitive to search something which contains many items hastily by carelessly turning things over or pushing things aside.
• verb transitive to search something thoroughly and with disregard for the way in which things were arranged
• verb intransitive to hastily search for something in a confined space and among many items by carelessly turning things over or pushing things aside.
• noun obsolete commotion; disturbance
• noun a thorough search, usually resulting in a disorder
• noun an unorganized collection of miscellaneous objects; a jumble

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a jumble of things to be given away
• noun a thorough search for something (often causing disorder or confusion)
• verb search haphazardly