1890. Cassell's Enc. Dict. Gambler, one given to playing for a stake.
Gambol, subs. (booking clerks').A
railway ticket.
1882. Daily News, 6 Sept., p. 2, c. 5. . . .Mr. Chance [the magistrate] asked what gambols meant. The inspector said doubtless the railway tickets.
Gam-cases, subs. (old). Stockings
(Parker, Life's Painter).
[From gam = leg + case.]
Game, subs. (old).—1. The proceeds
of a robbery; swag (q.v.).
1676. Warning for Housekeepers. Song. When that we have bit the bloe, we carry away the game.
2. (old).—A company of whores. A game-pullet = a young prostitute, or a girl inclined to lechery; cf., adj., sense 8.
1690. B.E., New Dictionary, s.v. . . . also a Bawdy house, lewd women.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. game . . . Mother, have you any game, Mother, have you any girls?
3. (old).—A gull; a simpleton. For synonyms, see Buffle and Cabbage-head.
1690. B. E., New Dictionary. Game, c. Bubbles drawn in to be cheated.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
4. (thieves').—Specifically, the game = thieving; also (nautical), slave trading; and (venery), the practice of copulation (e.g., good at the game = an expert and vigorous bedfellow. Cf., Shakspeare, Troilus, iv., 5, 'Spoils of opportunity, daughters of the game'). In quot. (1639) it would seem that hen of the game = a shrew, a fighting woman.
1639-61. Rump, ii., 185. 'Free Parliament Litany.' From a dunghill Cock and a Hen of the Game.
1640. Ladies' Parliament. Stamford she is for the game, She saies her husband is to blame, For her part she loves a foole, If he hath a good toole.
1668. Etheredge, She Would if She Could, i., 1. A gentleman should not have gone out of his chambers but some civil officer of the game or other would have . . . given him notice where he might have had a course or two in the afternoon.
17(?). Burns, Merry Muses, 'Jenny Macraw' (old song). Jenny Macraw was a bird of the game.
1839. Brandon, Poverty, Mendicity, and Crime, Glossary. On the game—thieving.
1851-61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., 263. Whether the game got stale, or Peter became honest, is beyond the purport of my communication to settle.
1852. Snowden, Mag. Assist. (3rd ed.), p. 444, s.v.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum or Rogue's Lexicon, s. v. The particular line of rascality the rogue is engaged in; thieving; cheating.
1860. Chambers' Journal, Vol. 13, p. 281. I asked him if he meant by a trading voyage, the game.
5. (colloquial).—A source of amusement; a lark (q.v.): a barney (q.v.); as, e.g., It was such a game!
6. (colloquial).—A design; trick; object; line of conduct: e.g., What's your little game = What are you after? Also, None of your little games! = None of your tricks! See High Old Game.
1854. Whyte Melville, General Bounce, ch. ix. Honesty, indeed! if honesty's the game, you've a right to your share, what Mrs. Kettering intended you should have.
1857. Ducange Anglicus, The Vulg. Tongue, p. 9. Game n. Intention. 'What's your game?' or, 'What are you up to?' (very generally used).
1870. Standard, 27 Sept. If we accept the meaner game which the Times indicates for us, it can only be by deliberate choice.
1879. Justin McCarthy, Donna Quixote, ch. xiii. Come, what's your little game?
