thimblerig

American  

[thim-buhl-rig] / ˈθɪm bəlˌrɪg /

noun

1. a sleight-of-hand swindling game in which the operator palms a pellet or pea while appearing to cover it with one of three thimblelike cups, and then, moving the cups about, offers to bet that no one can tell under which cup the pellet or pea lies.

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verb (used with object)

thimblerigged, thimblerigging

1. to cheat by or as by the thimblerig.

thimblerig British  

/ ˈθɪmbəlˌrɪɡ /

noun

1. a game in which the operator rapidly moves about three inverted thimbles, often with sleight of hand, one of which conceals a token, the other player betting on which thimble the token is under

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verb

1. (tr) to cheat or swindle, as in this game

Other Word Forms

• thimblerigger noun

Etymology

Origin of thimblerig

First recorded in 1815–25; thimble + rig (in a British sense “a swindle, fraud”)

Example Sentences

The heroine of this cheerful thimblerig of a novel is an eleven-year-old orphan whose mother was "the wildest girl in Marengo County, Alabama."

From Time Magazine Archive

Your genuine pietist would find a mystical sense in thimblerig.

From Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley — Volume 3 by Huxley, Leonard

How terribly alike are all human rogueries, whether the scene be a conference at Vienna, or the tent of a thimblerig at Ascot!

From The Fortunes Of Glencore by Lever, Charles James

But the only object of this argument is to show how mal-adroitly Mr. Landor plays at thimblerig.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843 by Various

"Well, well! and did they ever come the thimblerig on you?"

From A Desperate Chance The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, a Thrilling Narrative by Halsey, Harlan Page