gambol

Etymology

The noun is borrowed from Middle French gambade (“leap or spring, especially of a horse”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} first taken over as gambade and then altered through the spellings gambaude, gambauld and gambold to the modern form in the 17th century,^[7] by association with words ending in a French suffix, such as ribald, and then by loss of the final consonant.^[2][6][9] The French word comes from either Italian gambata (“trip-up”), not recorded until the 16th century, or Occitan cambado, also gambado, recorded in the 17th century but probably older, since it is widespread in the regions.^[2] Hoad, the Oxford Dictionary of English, Skeat and Weekley choose the Italian,^{[7][8][10][9]} and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Barnhart the Provençal.^[4][3] Either way it is ultimately based on gamba (“leg”) or its cognate Old Occitan camba (“leg”),^[2] from Late Latin gamba (“hock or leg of a horse”), also camba,^[4][3][6] from Ancient Greek καμπή (kampḗ, “bend”).^[4][3][6][5] The verb probably comes partly from the noun and partly from gambader, recorded from 1532 and perhaps in 1425 as gambadir in a Swiss text.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

An energetic leap by a horse: about 1503, in J. Younge's account of the Fyancells of Margaret.^[2] Barnhart too finds gambad, the leap of a horse, in 1503,^[3] while Etymonline starts from gambolde in the 1510s.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word began in horsemanship, as Weekley notes,^[9] and within a few years moved from the horse to people: a leap or caper in dancing or play in 1509, in H. Watson's translation of Brant's Shyppe of Fooles,^[2] and the verb in the same sense in 1508, in Fisher.^[2][3] Weekley thought the sense was influenced by association with game,^[9] and Partridge wondered whether the form was influenced by gamble.^[11] The figurative use followed in 1573.^[2] From 1580 the plural could mean the customary games of holidays such as Christmas and Easter.^[2] Shakespeare used the noun in The Merchant of Venice (1596),^[3] and the verb in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1590) and, figuratively, in Hamlet.^[3][2] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "a skip; a hop; a leap for joy", with a playful spaniel among his quotations.^[12] The verb is now used chiefly of animals and children.^[2] In the English Midlands, in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, a gambol is a somersault; in west Worcestershire and Herefordshire the verb has meant to climb.^[13][2]

Timeline

• c. 1503 – noun, a leap by a horse.^[2][3]
• c. 1507 – verb, of a horse, to make an energetic leap.^[2]
• 1508 – verb, to frolic, to jump about playfully.^[2][3][4] Etymonline dates the form gambol as a verb to the 1580s.^[6]
• 1509 – noun, a leap or caper in dancing or play.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the noun to about 1510.^[4]
• 1573 – noun, figurative.^[2]
• 1579 – noun, a toy or plaything (obsolete by 1630).^[2]
• 1580 – noun, a game customary at a time of festivity.^[2]
• 1604 – verb, figurative, in Hamlet.^[2]
• 1881 – noun, in the Midlands, a somersault.^[2][13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To skip or jump about playfully; to frolic: Lambs gambolled across the lower pasture.^[14][4][2]
2. Of a horse, to make an energetic leap; to curvet.^[2]

Noun

1. A playful skip or leap; a frolic.^[14][4][2]
2. (rare) An energetic leap by a horse.^[2]
3. (regional) In the English Midlands, a somersault or forward roll.^[2][13]

Related words

• jamb
• gammon
• gambado
• gambade
• gamble

Usage notes

British English doubles the l in gambolled and gambolling.^[14] American English also writes gamboled and gamboling.^[14][4] Dictionary.com lists the word with its near-homophone gamble as a pair to keep apart.^[15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House