Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The game of nine-holes.
  • noun In whist, a manner of playing “either in utter ignorance of all its known principles, or in defiance of them, or both” (Pembridge).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The old game of nineholes.
  • noun (Card Playing) Whist played in an unscientific way.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

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  • 1. a game in which a ball slung to a post is struck with a racket by each player in opposite directions, the object being to wind the string entirely around the post; also the post so used.

    tetherball.

    2. whist or bridge played without a system.

    See also aquatic bumblepuppy

    There is also centrifugal bumblepuppy:

    The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one or other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught.

    "Brave New World", Aldous Huxley.

    July 9, 2008

  • "Playing bumble-puppy with Minnie Beebe, niece to the rector, and aged thirteen--an ancient and most honourable game, which consists in striking tennis-balls high into the air, so that they fall over the net and immoderately bounce; some hit Mrs. Honeychurch; others are lost. The sentence is confused, but the better illustrates Lucy's state of mind, for she was trying to talk to Mr. Beebe at the same time."

    - E.M. Forster, A Room With a View

    May 3, 2011

  • If you must play and cannot refuse

    Demeanor is still yours to choose:

    Be stiff and stuckuppy

    Or play bumblepuppy

    To show you don't care if you lose.

    May 28, 2014