famble

plural fambles

1. obsoleteslangA hand.

   We clap our fambles.

   c. 1622, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger [et al.?], “Beggars Bush”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act II, scene i

   2 more examples

   A Bow Street Runner says "I knew a cove as talked the way you do – leastways, in the way of business I knew him! In fact, you remind me of him very strong […] He was on the dub-lay, and very clever with his fambles. He ended up in the Whit, o’ course."

   1951, Georgette Heyer, The Quiet Gentleman

   I'm keeping my fambles clean on this trip.

   1999, Nancy Kress, Yanked!, page 47

present singular third person fambles · participle present fambling · participle past fambled · past fambled

1. obsoleteTo stammer.

   Destiny, it might be said, simply opened its mouth to speak and, for reasons no one really knew, fambled to a halt.

   1981, Alexander Theroux, Darconville's Cat, page 310

   2 more examples

   “Stow that, Jem, if you please, ” said Gemman Joe, as he had been called by his comrade.— "Toggery is too apt to tell tales. I won't have a rag of it fambled. It's a prime job for us already, for we are to touch. five-and-twenty guineas a-piece, you know, for doing his business, and we don't get such a grab as that every day."

   1833, Horace Smith, Gale Middleton: A Story of the Present Day - Volume 1, page 149

   “You know, I realized,” she began, her eyes sparkling in the pub's dimness, “that I didn't even catch your name at the Oxford Union the other night.” “Um, Sharpe,” I fambled. “Philip.”

   2017, Mark Sampson, The Slip