bumble-puppy

[prettygoodword]

bumble-puppy or bumblepuppy - n., whist or bridge played poorly or without regard for the rules.


But also previously, according to other dictionaries than Green's, (a) another name for nineholes, a game in which balls or marbles are rolled into nine holes in the ground or through arches in a board, (b) a game in public houses in which balls are rolled down a sloping board, often with pegs, and pierced with numbered holes, an ancestor of both bar billiards and pachinko, and (c) game in which a ball attached by string to a post is hit so that the string winds round the post, which I've always known as tetherball. Name is of uncertain origin, though bumbling around has something to do with it, and while it's hard to be sure, it looks like (b) might be the oldest sense. Maybe.

Bonus word: boardsman (hint: for 'trick' read 'monte')

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

Who else first encountered this word in Brave New World (in which context I assumed it was a deliberately weird-sounding in-universe coinage for the futuristic game described?) Meaning (b) would seem to apply.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=903

[prettygoodword]

I remembered the game in BNW (and its resemblance to the playground thing with four chutes, which my kid's elementary school had) but not its name. It's been mumble decades since I read it. The first I recall seeing it, and it felt new to me at the time, was in someone's forum handle in, what, the mid-90s I think.

[med_cat]

Cute word