nine-holes
1. a. A game in which the players endeavour to roll small balls into nine holes made in the ground, each hole having a separate scoring value. b. A similar game played with a board having nine holes or arches.
For a detailed account of the games see Strutt Sports & Past. (1801) 204–5 and the Eng. Dial. Dict.
| 1573 New Custom i. i. in Hazl. Dodsley III. 9 Playing at quoits or nine-holes, or shooting at butts. 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 56, Boies, that fell vpon one of their fellowes, and beate him most cruelly for playing false playe at nine holes. 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. xiv. 22 The vnhappy wags, which let their Cattell stray, At Nine-holes on the heath whilst they together play. 1648 Herrick Hesper., Upon Raspe, Raspe plays at nine-holes; and t'is known he gets Many a teaster by his game, and bets. 1751 R. Paltock P. Wilkins xlv, One [game] like our bowls on a bowling-green, and at one somewhat like nine-holes. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iii. vii. 205, I have formerly seen a pastime practised by School-boys, called nine-holes. 1854 A. E. Baker Northampt. Gloss., Nine-holes, or Trunks. |
| attrib. 1593 G. Harvey Pierce's Super. 73 In time he may haply learne to play at nine hole nidgets. 1688 Holme Armoury iii. xvi. (Roxb.) 67/2 He beareth sable, a 9 Hole Board or, edged and linned of the first. |
c. in the nine-hole(s: in a difficulty.
U.S.| 1863 ‘E. Kirke’ My Southern Friends 76 He owned har [sc. a slave] till he got in the nineholes one day, and sold har to the Gin'ral. 1877 Congress. Rec. 3 Nov. 230/1 We have put the gentleman in the ‘nine-holes’; and there we intend to keep him. 1890 Ibid. 12 June 6002/1 The bill..has passed the Senate, and, to use a Western expression, it will put me ‘in the nine-hole’ if I do not get it through. 1906 B. L. Ridley Battles & Sk. Army Tennessee 295 The only time he ever got Johnston apparently in ‘a nine hole’ was at Resaca, on May 15, 1864. |
2. Sc. ‘That piece of beef that is cut out immediately below the brisket or breast, denominated from the vacancies left by the ribs’ (
Jam. 1825).
| 1842 J. Aiton Domest. Econ (1857) 98 For boiling pieces of beef, the runner, the nineholes, and the breast are the best. 1844 Stephens Bk. Farm II. 169 The nineholes..consists of layers of fat and lean without any bone. |
3. The lamprey.
| a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Nine-holes, a fish of the lamprey kind, not uncommon in our Fen ditches. 1880–4 Day Fishes Gt. Brit. II. 360 Lampern,..nine-eyes, nine-holes, the eye and nasal orifice appear to be here counted. |