tumble
verbEtymology From Middle English tumblen (“to fall over and over again, tumble”), frequentative of Middle English tumben (“to fall, leap, dance”), from Old English tumbian, from Proto-West Germanic *tumbōn, tūmōn, from Proto-Germanic *tumbōną, tūmōną (“to turn, rotate”). Cognate with Middle Dutch tumelen (whence Dutch tuimelen), Middle Low German tumelen, tummelen, German taumeln, Danish tumle, Swedish tumla, tumbla (“to tumble”), Faroese tumla, tumbla (“to walk heavily and noisily, stagger”).
10 senses
- 1To fall end over end; to roll over and over.
- 2To throw headlong.
- 3To perform gymnastics such as somersaults, rolls, and…
- 4To drop rapidly.
- 5To smooth and polish (e.g. gemstones or pebbles) by…
- 6To have sexual intercourse.
- 7To move or rush in a headlong or uncontrolled way.
- 8To muss, to make disorderly; to tousle or rumple.
- 9To obscure the audit trail of funds by means of a tumbler.
- 10To comprehend; often in tumble to.
To fall end over end; to roll over and over.
- He who tumbles from a tower surely has a greater blow than he who slides from a molehill.1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:
- “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better.[…]”1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get inside, and heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief.1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows:
- Before so many of Europe's crowns came tumbling off the heads of their royal owners, Continental Europe could show a rich variety in the matter of royal trains.1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 250:
To throw headlong.
- His hand went after his revolver almost that instant mine did. I was a second too quick for him, for my shot tumbled him from his mule just as his ball whistled harmlessly past by my head.1861, E. J. Guerin, Mountain Charley, page 42:
- [Spillikins] was played with ivory or bone pieces about five inches long with assorted ends. These were tumbled out of a box into a pile on the table and each player, using a specially designed tool, would try in turn to remove a spillikin without upsetting the others in the pile.1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 125:
1 more example
- [A] surge of muddy water tore him free from his sandy nook and tumbled him down the gully.2012, Max Overton, Horemheb:
To perform gymnastics such as somersaults, rolls, and handsprings.
To drop rapidly.
- Share prices tumbled after the revelation about the company's impending failure.
To smooth and polish (e.g. gemstones or pebbles) by means of a rotating tumbler.
Informal To have sexual intercourse.
To move or rush in a headlong or uncontrolled way.
- Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question ; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter XXVII, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 129:
To muss, to make disorderly; to tousle or rumple.
- to tumble a bed
Business, Cryptocurrencies, Cryptocurrency, Finance To obscure the audit trail of funds by means of a tumbler.
- Now it’s easy to purchase bitcoins on any number of mainstream markets and “tumble” them so that their point of purchase is obscured.2019, Brian Merchant, “Click Here to Kill: The dark world of online murder markets”, in Harper’s Magazine, volume 2020, number January:
- Speaking of this language, a costermonger said to me: "The Irish can't tumble to it anyhow; the Jews can tumble better, but we're their masters. Some of the young salesmen at Billingsgate understand us, — but only at Billingsgate; […]1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor:
- Derived terms
- atumble, betumble, detumble, overtumble, retumble, tu, tumblebug, tumble down, tumbledung, tumblehome, tumble in, tumblelog, tumble on, tumbleset, tumblesome, tumblestone, tumble to, tumble together, tumble up, tumbling E chart, tumblingly, tumbling mat, tumbling mill, untumbled