thimblerig

English

WOTD – 26 July 2016

Alternative forms

thimble-rig

Etymology

L’Escamoteur (The Conjurer, c. 1502, detail) by Hieronymus Bosch and/or his workshop, collection of the Musée Municipal in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Île-de-France, France. A man of rank is shown peering spellbound at a game of cups and balls, similar to thimblerig, operated by a conjurer. (The full painting can be viewed here.)

From thimble +‎ rig.

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈθɪmbəlɹɪɡ/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Hyphenation: thim‧ble‧rig

Noun

thimblerig (countable and uncountable, plural thimblerigs)

A game of skill which requires the bettor to guess under which of three small cups (or thimbles) a pea-sized object has been placed after the party operating the game rapidly rearranges them, providing opportunity for sleight-of-hand trickery; a shell game.
Synonym: shell game
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 45, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
  He’ll muddle away the Begum’s fortune at thimble-rig, be caught picking pockets, and finish on board the hulks.
- 1908, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Modern Rural Sports”, in The Gentle Grafter, New York, N.Y.: The McClure Company, →OCLC:
  ‘Great Barnums?’ says I. ‘You're a ringer for a circus thimblerig man.’
One operating such a game.
Synonym: thimblerigger

Translations

sleight-of-hand betting game — see also shell game

Bulgarian: тука има - тука няма (tuka ima - tuka njama)
Hungarian: itt a piros
Russian: напёрстки (napjórstki)
Spanish: trile (es) m
Tagalog: tatlong-didal

person operating such a game — see also thimblerigger

Russian: напёрсточник (ru) (napjórstočnik)
Spanish: trilero m, trilera f

Verb

thimblerig (third-person singular simple present thimblerigs, present participle thimblerigging, simple past and past participle thimblerigged)

(intransitive) To cheat in the thimblerig game.
- 1916, Irvin S. Cobb, “Enter the villain”, in Local Color‎^[1]:
  Old Pratt is a different kind of crook—a psalm-singing, pussyfooted old buccaneer, teaching a Bible class on Sundays and thimblerigging in Wall Street on week days.
(transitive, intransitive, figuratively) To cheat (someone) by trickery.
- 1905, David Graham Phillips, The Plum Tree‎^[2]:
  The favor is to you. I do not permit any man to thimblerig his debts to me into my debts to him.