▪ I. tumbling, vbl. n.
(ˈtʌmblɪŋ)
[f. as prec. + -ing1.]
The action of tumble v. in various senses.
| a 1425 Cursor M. 13195 (Trin.) In euel tyme bigan she tomblyng To make his heed of be brouȝt. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 506/1 Tumlynge, volutacio. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §102 It apperethe by stampynge of the horse or tomblynge. c 1580 J. Jeffere Bugbears Epil., Song ii. in Archiv Stud. Neu. Apr. (1897), With joomblynges, with foomblynges, with toomblynges. 1611 Cotgr., Basteleuse, a woman that makes a profession of Jugling, Tumbling, and such other idle, or base exercises. 1660 Burney κέρδ. Δῶρον (1661) 30 The tumblings of the Leviathan in the Seas. 1687 Fountainhall Decis. (1759) I. 440 Physicians attested the employment of tumbling would kill her. a 1774 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) II. 456 Lucretius..granted that the atoms,..after infinite tumblings and tossings about, would fall into their former situation. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. 2 We can explain the odd tumbling of rooks in the air. |
b. tumbling home: the inward inclination of the upper part of a ship's sides; opposed to flare n.1 4: see tumble v. 11. Also tumbling-in.
| 1664 E. Bushnell Compl. Shipwright 11 Then set off the Tumbling Home, at the Height of the two first Haanses. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Encabanement, the tumbling-home of a ship's side from the lower-deck-beam upwards, to the gunnel. 1832 Encycl. Amer. XI. 367/2 Nothing can be urged in favor of tumbling in..but that it brings the guns nearer the centre. c 1850 Rudim. Navig. (Weale) 157 The topsides of three-decked ships have the greatest tumbling-home, for the purpose of clearing the upper works from the smoke and fire of the lower guns. |
▪ II. ˈtumbling, ppl. a.
[f. as prec. + -ing2.]
That tumbles, in various senses of the verb; falling; tossing; rolling headlong; also fig.
| c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. iii. pr. ix. 67 (Camb. MS.) Trowesthow þat ther be any thing in thise erthely mortal towmblynge thinges? 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. (Percy Soc.) 131 Stere well the frayle tombling barge. c 1620 Z. Boyd Zion's Flowers (1855) 109 Where tumbling billowes bath the very sky. 1638 Junius Paint. Ancients 306 A tumbling and wallowing horse. 1760–72 H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) II. 128 All that I owed came like a tumbling house upon me. 1837 W. Irving Capt. Bonneville II. ix. 130 Down the ravine of a tumbling stream, the commencement of some future river. 1873 Black Pr. Thule vi, This tumbling mass of dark stones standing high over the green hollows. |
Hence ˈtumblingly adv., in a tumbling manner.
| 1620 Thomas Lat. Dict., Volutatim,..rollingly, tumblingly, tossingly. |