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)

  1. 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
  2. One operating such a game.
    Synonym: thimblerigger

Translations

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To cheat in the thimblerig game.
    • 1916, Irvin S. Cobb, “Enter the villain”, in Local Color‎:
      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.
  2. (transitive, intransitive, figuratively) To cheat (someone) by trickery.
    • 1905, David Graham Phillips, The Plum Tree‎:
      The favor is to you. I do not permit any man to thimblerig his debts to me into my debts to him.

See also

Further reading
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