tumbler

Etymology

It is formed from English tumble + -er.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Etymonline compares the Old English word for an acrobatic dancer, tumbere,^[7][8] from tumbian (“to tumble, dance”),^[8][7] and the Middle English Dictionary derives the parallel Middle English form tumbere from that word or from Old French tombëor.^[9] Dictionary.com compares Low German tümeler (“drinking cup; kind of pigeon”) for the later senses.^[5] Why the drinking glass got the name is explained by its first shape: it had a rounded or pointed bottom, so it would tip over if put down and could not be set down until it was empty.^{[2][7][10][4][11]}

Earliest recorded meaning

An acrobat, one who performs somersaults, leaps and feats of agility: before 1340, in Rolle's Psalter.^[2] Etymonline says the mid-14th century, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged the 14th century.^[7][12]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster Unabridged defines the word simply as one that tumbles, and its senses follow the different ways of tumbling.^[12] The acrobat was the first; a feminine form, tumbester or tumblester, is recorded for female dancers from the late 14th and early 15th centuries,^[7] and Bosworth–Toller quotes Chaucer's "tombesteres Fetys and smale".^[8] Johnson (1755) knows only the performer, one who "shews postures by various contortions of body".^[13] From the early 16th century it named a dog like a small greyhound that took rabbits by tumbling about to distract them,^[2][3][12] and this was transferred in slang to the person who lured victims for swindlers.^[2][14] The drinking cup of the 1660s, often of silver or gold in its early form,^[2] kept the name when the shape changed: it now has a heavy flat base.^[2][15] The mechanical senses, a pivoted piece that turns or tips, include the part of a lock that holds the bolt until a key lifts it.^[3][7][16] In the 20th century the word was also used for a tumble dryer.^[3][15]

Timeline

• before 1340 – an acrobat.^[2]
• 1519 – a dog like a small greyhound, used to catch rabbits.^[2]
• mid 16th century – a part that rotates or acts as a pivot, as in a gunlock.^[3] Etymonline dates the part of a lock to the 1670s.^[7]
• 1602 – a person who lures others into the hands of swindlers (obsolete by 1785), in Jonson's Poetaster.^[2] Green's Dictionary of Slang has it from 1600.^[14]
• 1664 – a drinking cup with a rounded or pointed bottom, in Pepys's diary.^[2] Etymonline says the 1660s.^[7]
• 1673 – a cart or tumbrel, in slang and dialect.^[2][14]
• 1678 – a domestic pigeon that turns over backwards in flight.^[2]
• 1680 – the six of trumps in the game of gleek (obsolete by 1688).^[2]
• 1694 – a name for the porpoise (obsolete by 1808).^[2]
• 1789 – in geology, a detached mass of rock or boulder, now only in dialect.^[2]
• 1796 – with a capital, a Dunker, from the way they baptize, in the US.^[2]
• 1829 – the contents of a tumbler.^[2]
• 1850 – a toy with a low centre of gravity that rocks when touched, in Dickens.^[2]
• 1904 – a person who tumbles or falls.^[2]
• mid 20th century – a tumble dryer.^[3]
• 1960 – an inexperienced window cleaner, in Burgess.^[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A drinking glass with a flat bottom and no handle or stem: She filled a tumbler with cold water.^[15][10][17]
2. The contents of such a glass; a tumblerful.^[15][10][2]
3. An acrobat or gymnast, especially one who performs somersaults.^[15][10][3]
4. A pivoted piece in a lock that holds the bolt until a key lifts it.^[16][18][3]
5. A notched pivoted plate in a gunlock, through which the mainspring acts on the hammer.^[16][3]
6. A tumble dryer.^[15][16]
7. A pivoted box or revolving drum in which things are tumbled, as for polishing gemstones.^[15][18][3]
8. A domestic pigeon of a breed that somersaults backwards in flight.^{[15][10][2][12]}
9. A toy with a weighted rounded base that rocks and rights itself.^[10][18][2]
10. A person who tumbles or falls.^[2][3]
11. The pupa of a mosquito.^[12][6]
12. (dialect) A cart; a tumbrel.^[2][3][12]
13. (historical) A dog like a small greyhound, formerly used to catch rabbits.^[2][3][12]
14. (obsolete, slang, 1602–1785) A person who lures others into the hands of swindlers.^[2][3][14]
15. (obsolete, 1694–1808) The porpoise.^[2][19]

Word family

• tumblerful

Related words

• tumble
• tumbrel

Usage notes

In dialect the English Dialect Dictionary records the form tumler in Northumberland and the Lake District, and the porpoise sense in Scotland.^[19]

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 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
9. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
10. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2009), 5th ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman
18. ^ a b c The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
19. ^ a b 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)