Emily Dickinson Lexicon

GAM'BOL-ING, ppr.

Leaping; frisking; playing pranks.

GAM'BREL, n. [from It. gamba, the leg.]

The hind leg of a horse. Hence, in America, a crooked stick used by butchers. A hipped roof is called a gambrel-roof.

GAM'BREL, v.t.

To tie by the leg. Beaum.

GAME, n. [Ice. gaman; Sax. gamen, a jest, sport; gamian, to jest, to sport; It. giambare, to jest or jeer; W. camp, a feat, a game; campiaw, to contend in games. The latter seems to unite game with camp, which in Saxon and other northern dialects signifies a combat.]

1. Sport of any kind. Shak.
2. Jest; opposed to earnest; as, betwixt earnest and game. [Not used.] Spenser.
3. An exercise or play for amusement or winning a stake; as, a game of cricket; a game of chess; a game of whist. Some games depend on skill, others on hazard.
4. A single match at play. Addison.
5. Advantage in play; an, to play the game into another's hand.
6. Scheme pursued; measures planned. This seems to be the present game of that crown. Temple.
7. Field sports; the chase; falconry, &c. Shak. Waller.
8. Animals pursued or taken in the chase, or in the sports of the field; animals appropriated in England to legal sportsmen; as deer, hares, &c.
9. In antiquity, games were public diversions or contests exhibited as spectacles for the gratification of the people. These games consisted of running, leaping, wrestling, riding, &c. Such were the Olympic games, the Pythian, the Isthmian, the Nemean, &c. among the Greeks; and among the Romans, the Apollinarian, the Circensian, the Capitoline, &c. Encyc.
10. Mockery; sport; derision; as, to make game of a person.

GAME, v.i. [Sax. gamian.]

1. To play at any sport or diversion.
2. To play for a stake or prize; to use cards, dice, billiards or other instruments, according to certain rules, with a view to win money or other thing waged upon the issue of the contest.
3. To practice gaming.

GAME'COCK, n.

A cock bred or used to fight; a cock kept for barbarous sport. Locke.

GAME'EGG, n.

An egg from which a fighting cock is bred. Garth.

GAME'FUL, a.

Full of game or games.

GAME'KEEP-ER, n.

One who has the care of game; one who is authorized to preserve beasts of the chase, or animals kept for sport. Blackstone.

GAME'LEG, a.

A lame leg.

GAME'LESS, a.

Destitute of game.

GAME'SOME, a.

Gay; sportive; playful; frolicksome. This gamesome humor of children. Locke.

GAME'SOME-LY, adv.

Merrily; playfully.

GAME'SOME-NESS, n.

Sportiveness; merriment.

GAME'STER, n. [game, and Sax. steora, a director.]

1. A person addicted to gaming; one who is accustomed to play for money or other stake, at cards, dice, billiards and the like; a gambler; one skilled in games. Addison. It is as easy to be a scholar as a gamester. Harris.
2. One engaged at play. Bacon.
3. A merry, frolicksome person. [Not used.] Shak.
4. A prostitute. [Not in use.] Shak.

GAM'ING, n.

1. The act or art of playing any game in a contest for a victory, or for a prize or stake.
2. The practice of using cards, dice, billiards and the like, according to certain rules, for winning money, &c.

GAM'ING, ppr.

Playing; sporting; playing for money.

GAM'ING-HOUSE, n.

A house where gaming is practiced. Blackstone.

GAM'ING-TA-BLE, n.

A table appropriated to gaming.

GAM-MAR'O-LITE, n.

A petrified crawfish or other crustaceous animal.

GAM'MER, n. [Sw. gammal, Dan. gammel, old; Sw. gumma, an old woman.]

The compellation of an old woman, answering to gaffer, applied to an old man.

GAM'MON, n. [It. gamba; Fr. jambe, a leg; jambon, a leg of bacon, jambe bone.]

1. The buttock or thigh of a hog, pickled and smoked or dried; a smoked ham.
2. A game, called usually back-gammon, – which see.

GAM'MON, v.t.

1. In the game of back-gammon, the party that, by fortunate throws of the dice or by superior skill in moving, withdraws all his men from the board, before his antagonist has been able to get his men home and withdraw any of them from his table, gammons his antagonist.
2. To impose on a person by making him believe improbable stories. Pickwick Papers.

GAM'MON, v.t.

1. To make bacon; to pickle and dry in smoke.
2. To fasten a bowsprit to the stem of a ship by several turns of a rope. Mar. Dict.

GAM'MON-ED, pp. [See the verb.]