Slang and its analogues past and present, volume 3 (of 7)

by John Stephen Farmer; William Ernest Henley

1796. Grose, Vulg. Tongue (3rd ed.), s.v.

1819. Moore, Memorial, p. 61. Back to his home, with tottering gams.

1887. Henley, Villon’s Good Night. At you I merely lift my gam.

[To flutter a gam = to dance; to lift a gam = to break wind; to gam it = to walk; to run away; to leg it (q.v.)].

Gamble, subs. (colloquial).—A venture: a flutter (q.v.).

1892. R. L. Stevenson and L. Osbourne, The Wrecker, p. 250. And you know the Flying Scud was the biggest gamble of the crowd.

Gambler, subs. (old, now recognised). See quots.

1778. Bailey, Eng. Dict. Gambler, a guinea-dropper; one class of sharpers.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. Gambler, a sharper; a tricking gamester.

1816. Johnson, Eng. Dict. (11th ed.). Gambler, a cant word, I suppose. A knave whose practice it is to invite the unwary to game and cheat them. [[108]]