akimbo, adv. (and a.)
(əˈkɪmbəʊ)
Forms: 5 in kenebowe, 7 on kenbow, a kenbow, a kenbol, a kenbold, on kimbow, (a-gambo), 7–8 a-kemboll, 8–9 a kembo, a kimbo, 8– a-kimbo, akimbo.
[Deriv. unknown. Prof. Skeat (Append.) gives a suggestion of Magnussen, comparing the earliest known forms with Icel. keng-boginn, -it, ‘crooked’ (Vigfusson), lit. ‘bent staple-wise, or in a horse-shoe curve’; other suggestions are a cambok in the manner of a crooked stick (ME. cambok, med.L. cambūca, see cammock); a cam bow in a crooked bow. None of these satisfies all conditions.
The difficulty as to a-cambok, a cam bow, is that no forms of the word show cam-, from which the earliest are the most remote. The Icel. keng-boginn comes nearer the form, but there is no evidence that it had the special sense of a-kimbo, and none that the latter ever had the general sense of ‘crooked.’ It also postulates an early Eng. series of forms like *keng-bown or *keng-bowed, *keng-bow, *akengbow, quite unknown and unaccounted for.]
Of the arms: In a position in which the hands rest on the hips and the elbows are turned outwards. Now usu. hyphenless. Also transf. and fig. (see quots.), and as adj.
| c 1400 Beryn 1837 The hoost..set his hond in kenebowe. 1611 Cotgr. s.v. Arcade. To set his hands a kenbow. 1627 Peacham Compl. Gent. (1634) v. xx. 247 The armes of two side-men on kenbow. 1629 Gaule Holy Madnesse 92 With his armes a kemboll. a 1642 Sir T. Urquhart Tracts (1782) 71 With gingling spurrs, and his armes a kenbol. 1644 Bulwer Chiron. 104 (L.) To set the arms a-gambo and a-prank. 1678 Wycherley Plain-Dealer ii. i. 23 He has no use of his Arms, but to set 'em on kimbow. 1681 Hobbes Rhet. iii. xv. 126 Setting his arms a-kenbold. 1711 Steele Spect. No. 187 ¶3 She would clap her arms a kimbow. 1727 Arbuthnot John Bull 72 John was forced to sit with his arm a-kimbo. 1748 Richardson Clarissa (1811) V. 317 She set her huge arms akembo. 1782 F. Burney Cecil. ii. iii. 170 Putting his arms akembo with an air of defiance. 1879 Browning Ned Bratts 143 Both arms a-kimbo. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 516 The Fan (folded akimbo against her waist). 1943 I. Brown Just Another Word 24 ‘She got terribly akimbo’ became a species of Mayfair slang for what was earlier called ‘high horse’. I have also heard it used by stage people for over-acting. ‘So and so was a bit akimbo to-night.’ 1959 New Yorker 5 Dec. 146 He tended to match all of Coleman's near-atonal plunges with akimbo melodic lines of his own. |