crambo

American  

[kram-boh] / ˈkræm boʊ /

noun

plural

cramboes

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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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

So Blind Man's Buff was given up and something quieter tried—Dumb Crambo, I think.

From Project Gutenberg

Crambo, kram′bo, n. a game in which one gives a word to which another finds a rhyme: rime.—ns.

From Project Gutenberg

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 Project Gutenberg

The portraits on the sordid walls were very like the crambo in the minds of ordinary men—very like the motley pictures of the Famous hung up in your parlour, O my Public!

From Project Gutenberg

You must know, sir, that the intrigue lay folded up in his master's clothes; and, when he went to dust the embroidered suit, the secret flew out of the right pocket of his coat, in a whole swarm of your crambo songs, short-footed odes, and long-legged pindarics.

From Project Gutenberg