crambo
(ˈkræmbəʊ)
[app. a popular variation of crambe: cf. senses 1 b and 4.]
1. a. A game in which one player gives a word or line of verse to which each of the others has to find a rime.
| 1660 Pepys Diary 20 May, From thence to the Hague again playing at Crambo in the waggon. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 63 ¶6 A Cluster of Men and Women..diverting themselves at a Game of Crambo. 1712 Steele Ibid. No. 504 ¶1 Those who can play at Crambo, or cap Verses. 1721 Bailey, Crambo, a Play in Rhiming, in which he that repeats a Word that was said before, forfeits something. 1837 Blackw. Mag. XLI. 289 A sort of Hellenic crambo—Hesiod singing one verse, and Homer filling up the meaning with another. |
b. dumb crambo: a game in which one set of players have to guess a word agreed upon by the other set, after being told what word it rimes with, by acting in dumb show one word after another till they find it. (Sometimes transf. = dumb show.)
| 1811 Wynne Diaries 12 Sept. (1940) III. x. 340 They were obliged to dance reels and play at dumb Crambo. 1826 Praed Poems (1864) I. 293 One finds my pretty chambermaid, And courts her in dumb crambo. a 1839 Ibid. I. 66 And showed suspicions in dumb crambo. 1884 Edna Lyall We Two xxxiii, Brush your hair with your hands! This is something between Dumb Crambo and Mulberry Bush! |
2. transf. Rime, riming: said in contempt.
| 1697 Prior Sat. mod. Transl. 92 Wks. (1892) II. 362 Rymer to Crambo privelege does claim Not from the poet's genius, but his name. 1708 Brit. Apollo No. 6. 2/2 For Faith the freedom of Dear Cuz, Pop'd out as Crambo pat to Buzz. 1720 Swift To Stella, His similies in order set, And ev'ry crambo he cou'd get. 1828 Carlyle Misc. (1857) I. 142 A page or two of such crambo. 1878 Browning Poets Croisic lxxxiv, Every scribbler he permits embalm His crambo in the Journal's corner! |
† 3. A fashion in drinking. Obs. (Cf. crambe 3, quot. 1630.)
| 1606 Dekker Sev. Sinnes i. (Arb.) 12 And were drunke according to all the learned rules of Drunkennes, as Vpsy-Freeze, Crambo, Parmizant, &c. 1617 T. Young England's Bane (Brand), He is a Man of no Fashion that cannot drinke Supernaculum, carouse the Hunters Hoop, quaffe Upseyfresse Crosse, bowse in Permoysaunt, in Pimlico, in Crambo. |
† 4. = crambe, repetition. Also attrib. Obs.
| c 1670 Marvell Hist. Poem 87 And with dull crambo feed the silly sheep. 1705 W. S. Perry Hist. Coll. Amer. Col. Ch. I. 154 Stuffing every half page..with his crambo Storys. |
5. attrib. and Comb., as crambo-rime, crambo-song; crambo-clink, -jingle = sense 2.
| 1762 Lloyd Odes, Oblivion ii. 9 Sacred to thee the crambo rhyme. 1785 Burns Ep. to Lapraik viii, Amaist as soon as I could spell, I to the crambo-jingle fell. 1786 ― On Scotch Bard i, A' ye wha live by crambo-clink. 1789 F. Burney Diary 19 Feb., A crambo song, on his own name. 1876 Clerk in D. Macleod Life N. Macleod I. iii. 33 He would improvise crambo rhymes. |