▪ I. gammer, n.
(ˈgæmə(r))
Also 6–8 gammar, 5 (once) gandmer.
[See gaffer. The spelling gandmer in 1589 shows that the word was then regarded as a corruption of grandmother.]
A rustic title for an old woman, corresponding to gaffer for a man.
| 1575 J. Still (title), A Ryght Pithy, Pleasaunt and merie Comedie: Intytuled Gammer Gurtons Nedle. Ibid. i. iii, My Gammer is so out of course, and frantyke all at ones. 1589 R. Harvey Pl. Perc. 1 Now gandmer are not these your examples moralized? 1614 B. Jonson Barth. Fair v. vi, Hee has stolne gammar Vrsla's panne. 1634 Heywood & Brome Lanc. Witches ii. H.'s Wks. 1874 IV. 199 But gammer are not you a Witch? 1719 D'Urfey Pills (1872) III. 18 Our honest old Gammer is laid in the Clay. 1742 Fielding J. Andrews iv. xv, The pedlar..listened with the utmost attention to gammer Andrews's story. c 1815 Houlston's Juvenile Tracts, Cork Jacket 1, ‘I will tell you a tale’ said old Gammer Green. 1833 Tennyson Goose ix, Then yelp'd the cur, and yawl'd the cat; Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer. a 1845 Hood Tale Trumpet viii, There never was such a deaf old Gammer! 1866 Blackmore Cradock Nowell xv, The rector having learned every gammer's alloverishness and every gaffer's rheumatics. |
▪ II. gammer, v. dial.
(ˈgæmə(r))
[Perh. f. prec. n.; cf. gossip, F. commérage, etc.]
intr. To idle.
| 1788 W. Marshall Yorksh. II. 331 To Gammer, to idle. 1876 Whitby Gloss. s.v., ‘Gying gammering about’, sauntering and tattling all over. |