Meanings
- archaicuncountableArchaic form of gamboge.
1 more example
Gamboge is one of the firſt yellows, which may be made to produce five or six ſorts of Green with verdegreaſe, according as the gambooge is in the greater or leſſer proportion; if it abounds, it will make a tolerable oak green, and being mixt with a greater quantity of verdegreaſe, it will make a fine graſs Green.
1735, [John Barrow], “GREENS”, in Dictionarium Polygraphicum: Or, The Whole Body of Arts Regularly Digested. […], volume I (A–H), London: […] C[harles] Hitch and C[harles] Davis […], and S[amuel] Austen […], →OCLC
comparative more gambooge · superlative most gambooge
- archaicArchaic form of gamboge.
Beg your pardon, Sir, but this here officer o' yourn in the gambooge tops, 'ull never earn a decent livin' as a master o' the ceremonies any vere.
1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “Showing, among a Variety of Pleasant Matters, how Majestic and Impartial Mr. Nupkins was; and how Mr. Weller Returned Mr. Job Trotter’s Shuttlecock, as Heavily as It Came. With Another Matter, which will be Found in Its Place.”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC, page 2562 more examples
The cab stopped, and out jumped a man in a coarse Petersham great coat, whitey-brown neckerchief, faded black suit, gambooge-coloured top-boots, and one of those large crowned hats, formerly seldom met with, but now very generally patronised by gentlemen and costermongers.
1835 January, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle. Chapter the Second.”, in The Monthly Magazine, or British Register of Literature, Sciences, and the Belles-lettres, volume I (New Series), number 1, London: Published by James Cochrane and Co., Waterloo-Place, Pall-Mall, →OCLC, page 121[W]e can see, about a hundred yards behind, the dilapidated house: old, still yellowish—"gambooge coloured," [Charles] Lamb called it—two-storeyed, with tall, rickety windows.
1884 January, Percy Fitzgerald, “Sentimental Journeys in London: Old Houses”, in Tinsleys’ Magazine, volume XXXIV, London: Tinsley Brothers, 8, Catherine Street, Strand, W.C., →OCLC, part the third, page 80
Cite this entry
gambooge. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gambooge
“gambooge.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gambooge. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gambooge,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gambooge.
Source: gambooge on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.