Fulhams or Fullams, subs. (old).—Loaded dice; called ‘high’ or ‘low’ fulhams as they were intended to turn up high or low. Cf., gourd. [Conjecturally, because manufactured at Fulham, or because that village was a notorious resort of blacklegs.] For synonyms, see Uphills.
1594. Nashe, Unf. Traveller, in wks. v., 27. The dice of late are growen as melancholy as a dog, high men and low men both prosper alike, langrets, fullams, and all the whole fellowshippe of them will not affoord a man his dinner.
1596. Shakspeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, i., 3. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd, and fullam holds, And high and low beguile the rich and poor.
1599. Jonson, Every Man out of His Hum., iii., 1. Car.: Who! he serve? ’sblood, he keeps high men, and low men, he! he has—fair living at Fullam. [Whalley’s note in Gifford’s Jonson, The dice were loaded to run high or low; hence they were called high men or low men, and sometimes high and low fullams. Called fullams either because F. was the resort of sharpers, or because they were chiefly made there.]
1664. Butler, Hudibras, Part II., C. i., 1. 642. But I do wonder you should chuse This way t’ attack me with your muse, As one cut out to pass your tricks on, With fulhams of poetic fiction. [Note in Dr. Nash’s Ed., vol. I., p. 272 (Ed. 1835). ‘That is, with cheats or impositions. Fulham was a cant word for a false die, many of them being made at that place.’]
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxiii. Men talk of high and low dice, Fulhams and bristles … and a hundred ways of rooking besides.
2. (colloquial).—A sham; a make-believe (q.v.). [From sense 1.]
1664. Butler, Hudibras, ii., 1, Fulhams of poetic fiction.
Fulham Virgin, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A fast woman. Cf., Bankside lady; Covent Garden nun; St. John’s Wood vestal, etc.
Fulk, verb (old schoolboys’).—To use an unfair motion of the hand in plumping at taw.—Grose.