1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. xi. There’s something gamey
in it, young ladies, ain’t there.
1869. S. Bowles, Our New West, p. 275. Horses are fresh and fat and
gamey.
Gaminess, subs. (colloquial).—The malodorousness proceeding from decay
and—by implication—filthiness.
Gaming-house, subs. (old).—A house of ill-repute—hell, tavern, or
stews.
1611. Cotgrave, Dictionarie, Berlan, a common tippling house, a
house of gaming, or of any other disorder.
Gammer, subs. (old).—An old wife; a familiar address; the correlative
of gaffer (q.v.).
1551. Gammer Gurton’s Needle (Title).
1706. Hudibras Redivivus, Part VI. And monkey faces, yawns, and
stammers, Delude the pious dames and gammers To think their
mumbling guides precation So full of heavenly inspiration.
1842. Tennyson, The Goose. Ran Gaffer, stumbled gammer.
Gamming, subs. (nautical).—A whaleman’s term for the visits paid by
crews to each other at sea.
1884. G. A. Sala, in Illus. Lon. News, July 19, p. 51, c. 2. When
two or more American whalers meet in mid-ocean, and there are no
whales in sight, it is customary to tack topsails and exchange
visits. This social intercourse the whalemen call gamming ... I
cannot help fancying that ‘gam’ is in greater probability an
abbreviation of the Danish ‘gammen,’ sport, or that it has
something to do with the nautical ‘gammoning,’ the lasting by which
the bowsprit is bound firmly down to the cutwater.
1890. Century, Aug. To gam means to gossip. The word occurs again
and again in the log-books of the old whalers.
Gammon, subs. (colloquial).—1. Nonsense; humbug; deceit. Sometimes
gammon and spinach. No gammon = no error, no lies.
[Skeat says from Mid. Eng. Gamen = a game; but R. Sherwood (Eng. Dict.,
1660), gives ‘a beggar or seller of gammons of Bacon; and in Cotgrave
(1611), jambonnier = a beggar, also a seller of bacon, or gammons of
bacon.’]
c. 1363. Chester Plays, i. 102. This gammon shall begin.
1781. G. Parker, View of Society, I. 208. I thought myself pretty
much a master of gammon, but the Billingsgate eloquence of Mrs. P.
... exceeded me.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. Gamon. What rum gamon the old file
pitched to the flat.
1823. Mod. Flash Dict. gammon—Falsehood and bombast.
1823–45. Hood, Poems (ed. 1846), vi., p. 96, Behold yon servitor of
God and Mammon, Who, binding up his Bible with his ledger, Blends
Gospel texts with trading gammon.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xxvii. Lord bless their little hearts,
they thinks its all right, and don’t know no better, but they’re
the wictims o’ gammon, Samivel, they’re the wictims o’ gammon.
1837. Barham, I. L., Blasphemer’s Warning. When each tries to
humbug his dear Royal Brother, in Hopes by such gammon to take one
another in.
1839. Comic Almanack, Jan. But if you wish to save your bacon, Give
us less gammon.
1849. Dickens, David Copperfield, ch. xxii., p. 199. ‘Oh, my
goodness, how polite we are!’ exclaimed Miss Mowcher.... ‘What a
world of gammon and spinnage it is!’
1890. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 92. I’m real grit and no gammon.
2. (thieves’).—A confederate whose duty is to engage the attention of a
victim during robbery; a bonnet (q.v.) or cover (q.v.).
Verb (colloquial).—1. To humbug: to deceive; to take in with fibs; to
kid (q.v.).
1700. Step to the Bath, quoted in Ashton’s Soc. Life in Reign of
Queen Anne, v. ii., p. 111. We went to the Groom Porter’s ... there
was Palming, Hodging, Loaded Dice, Levant, and gammoning, with all
the Speed imaginable.
1823. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry, ii., 6. Vile I can get fifteen bob
a day by gammoning a maim, the devil may vork for me.
1825. Buckstone, The Bear Hunters, ii. There! that’s just the way
she gammons me at home.
1836. M. Scott, Tom Cringle’s Log, ch. ii. Why, my lad, we shall
see to-morrow morning; but you gammons so bad about the rhino that
we must prove you a bit; so Kate, my dear,—to the pretty girl who
had let me in.
1836. Dickens, Pickwick, ch. xiii. So then they pours him out a
glass o’ wine, and gammons him about his driving, and gets him into
a reg’lar good humour.
1837. Barham, Ingoldsby Legends, ‘Misadventures at Margate.’ And
’cause he gammons so the flats, ve calls him Veeping Bill!
1840. Hood, Tale of a Trumpet. Lord Bacon couldn’t have gammoned
her better.
1890. Hume Nisbet, Bail Up! p. 70. Oh, don’t try to gammon me, you
cunning young school-miss.
English Synonyms.—To bam; to bamblustercate; to bamboozle; to bambosh;
to barney; to be on the job; to best; to bilk; to blarney; to blow; to
bosh; to bounce; to cob; to cod; to cog; to chaff; to come over (or the
artful, or Paddy, or the old soldier over) one; to cram; to do; to do
brown; to doctor; to do Taffy; to fake the kidment; to flare up; to
flam; to flummox; to get at (round, or to windward of) one; to gild the
pill; to give a cock’s egg; to gravel; to gull; to haze; to jimmify; to
jaw; to jockey; to jolly; to kid; to make believe the moon is made of
green cheese (Cotgrave); to mogue; to palm off on; to pickle; to plant;
to plum; to poke bogey (or fun) at; to promoss; to put the kibosh on;
to put in the chair, cart, or basket; to pull the leg; to queer; to
quiz; to roast; to roorback; to run a bluff, or the shenanigan; to
sell; to send for pigeon’s milk; to sit upon; to send for oil of
strappum, etc.; to shave; to slum, or slumguzzle; to smoke; to snack;
to soap, soft soap, sawder, or soft sawder; to spoof; to stick; to
stall; to string, or get on a string; to stuff; to sawdust, or get on
sawdust and treacle; to suck; to suck up; to sugar; to swap off; to
take a rise out of; to rot; to tommy-rot; to take in, or down; to take
to town; to take to the fair; to tip the traveller; to try it on; to
throw dust in the eyes; to throw a tub to a whale; to pepper; to throw
pepper in the eyes; to use the pepper box; to whiffle; to work the
poppycock racket (Irish-American). [Note.—Many of the foregoing are
used substantively, e.g., a bam, a barney, a sell, bambosh = nonsense;
deceit; a hoax, etc.]
French Synonyms.—Donner un pont à faucher (also, thieves’ = to lay a
trap); dindonner (popular: from dindon = a gull, a gobbler); battre à
la Parisienne (thieves’: = to cheat; to come the cockney); se ficher de
la fiole, or de la bobine, de quelqu’un (popular: to get on with it,
i.e., to try to fool); envoyer chercher le parapluie de l’escouade
(military: parapluie de l’escouade = the squad’s umbrella: to send on a
fool’s errand; cf., to send for pigeon’s milk, etc.); la faire à
quelqu’un (popular); faucher (thieves’ = to best); enfoncer (familiar:
to let in: also to surpass); cabasser (popular); monter des couleurs,
le Job, or un schtosse (= to do up brown); faire le coup, or monter le
coup, à quelqu’un (popular: = to take a rise); bouffer la botte
(military: = to sell (q.v.) or bilk, as a woman refusing congress after
receiving the socket-money (q.v.) in advance); bouler (popular: also to
whop (q.v.)); être l’autre (popular: = to get left (q.v.)); mettre dans
le sac (thieves’: = to bag, i.e., to trap); coller or poser un lapin
(popular: = to make a hare of (q.v.); also more generally, to bilk
(q.v.)); emblémer (thieves’: = to stick); faire voir le tour (popular:
= to show how it’s done; connaitre le tour = to know the game); faire
la queue à quelqu’un (popular: = to pull one’s leg); tirer la carotte
(thieves’); canarder (popular: = to bring down); empaler (popular: = to
stick); passer des curettes (popular: = to befool); monter une gaffe
(popular: gaffe = a joke, a hoax); jobarder (popular: job = simpleton,
and is the same as jobelin); mener en bateau un pante pour le refaire
(thieves’: = to take a man on); monter un bateau (popular); promener
quelqu’un (popular: cf., to take to town); compter des mistoufles
(fam.: mistoufle = a scurvy trick); gourrer (popular: = to bosh);
affluer (from flouer = to cheat, to diddle); rouster (popular and
thieves’); affûter (thieves’ = to run down, also to make unlawful
profits); bouler (popular); juiffer (popular = to Jew); pigeonner
(popular to pluck a pigeon (q.v.)); flancher (popular = to kid (q.v.));
faire la barbe (popular = to shave (q.v.)); monter or hisser un gandin
(thieves’ = literally to hoist a swell); fourrer or mettre dedans
(popular = to take in and do for); planter un chou (fam.); être marron
(popular); interver dans les vannes (= to let oneself be sucked-up);
monter un godan à quelqu’un (popular); griller quelqu’un (popular = to
cuckold); passer en lunette (popular); goujonner (i.e., to hook like a
gudgeon); fourguer (thieves’ = also to fence (q.v.)); pousser une
blague (popular = to cram); paqueliner (thieves’); se baucher
(thieves’); balancer (popular).
German Synonyms.—Zinkennen an Almoni peloni (= to send one after Cheeks
the Marine [q.v.]. Almoni and peloni are used mockingly in combination
and also singly for a non-existent person); anbeulen (= to fool);
jemanden arbeiten (= to haze, to cram); bekaspern, or bekaschpern, or
beschwatzen (= to fool: from Heb. kosaw = to cheat).
Spanish Synonyms.—Disparar (= also to talk nonsense; to blunder); hacer
á uno su dominguillo, or hacer su dominguillo de uno (colloquial:
dominguillo = a figure made of straw and used at bull fights to enrage
the bulls); freirsela á alguno (freir = to fry: to deceive: Cf., to
roast, or have one on toast); pegar una tostada á alguno (= to put one
on toast: more generally to play a practical joke); echar de baranda (=
to embroider (q.v.)); bola (subs. = humbug; a hoax); borrufalla (subs.
= bombast); chicolear (= to jest in gallantry); engatusar (= to rob, or
hurt; also to trick without intention); candonguear (also = to jeer);
abrir á chasco (also to jeer); encantar (= to enchant).
Italian Synonyms. Ganezzarre; dar la stolfa; traversare (cf., to come
over); scamuffare (= to disguise oneself).