crambo

American  

[kram-boh] / ˈkræm boʊ /

noun

• cramboes
  plural

1. a game in which one person or side must find a rhyme to a word or a line of verse given by another.

2. inferior rhyme.

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crambo British  

/ ˈkræmbəʊ /

noun

1. a word game in which one team says a rhyme or rhyming line for a word or line given by the other team

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cramboes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of crambo

First recorded in 1600–10; earlier crambe < Latin crambē repetīta “cabbage reheated, re-served,” a phrase used in Juvenal's “Seventh Satire” (“Reheated cabbage kills teachers”) in reference to unimaginative writing, from Greek krámbē “cabbage”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

crambo

Query, What is the meaning of crambo here, and is it to be met with elsewhere with a similar meaning?

From Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc by Bell, George

Things look their most unexpected, masquerade as other things, get queer unintelligible allegoric meanings, leaving you to guess what it all means, a constant dumb crambo of trees, flowers, animals, houses, and moonlight.

From Limbo and Other Essays To which is now added Ariadne in Mantua by Lee, Vernon

He has written on his slate, 'Will you play crambo?'

From Miss Prudence A Story of Two Girls' Lives. by Maria, Jennie (Drinkwater) Conklin

After it, the whole family played at 'dumb crambo.'

From The Two Sides of the Shield by Yonge, Charlotte Mary

Brian was good at everything—charades, clumps, consequences, dumb crambo.

From The Golden Calf by Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)