thimblerig

• thimble-rig

From thimble +‎ rig.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈθɪmbəlɹɪɡ/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Hyphenation: thim‧ble‧rig

thimblerig (countable and uncountable, plural thimblerigs)

1. A game of skill which requires the bettor to guess under which of three small cups (or thimbles) a pea-sized object has been placed after the party operating the game rapidly rearranges them, providing opportunity for sleight-of-hand trickery; a shell game.

   Synonym: shell game

   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 45, in The History of Pendennis. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     He’ll muddle away the Begum’s fortune at thimble-rig, be caught picking pockets, and finish on board the hulks.

   • 1908, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Modern Rural Sports”, in The Gentle Grafter, New York, N.Y.: The McClure Company, →OCLC:

     ‘Great Barnums?’ says I. ‘You're a ringer for a circus thimblerig man.’

2. One operating such a game.

   Synonym: thimblerigger

thimblerig (third-person singular simple present thimblerigs, present participle thimblerigging, simple past and past participle thimblerigged)

1. (intransitive) To cheat in the thimblerig game.
   • 1916, Irvin S. Cobb, “Enter the villain”, in Local Color‎:

     Old Pratt is a different kind of crook—a psalm-singing, pussyfooted old buccaneer, teaching a Bible class on Sundays and thimblerigging in Wall Street on week days.

2. (transitive, intransitive, figuratively) To cheat (someone) by trickery.
   • 1905, David Graham Phillips, The Plum Tree‎:

     The favor is to you. I do not permit any man to thimblerig his debts to me into my debts to him.

• three-card monte

• thimblerig on Wikipedia.Wikipedia