adv. Forms: 5 in kenebowe, 7 on kenbow, a kenbow, a kenbol, a kenbold, on kimbow, (a-gambo), 7–8 a-kemboll, 8–9 a kembo, a kimbo, 8– a-kimbo. [Deriv. unknown. Prof. Skeat (Append.) gives a suggestion of Magnussen, comparing the earliest known forms with Icel. keng-boginn, -it, ‘crooked’ (Vigfusson), lit. ‘bent staple-wise, or in a horse-shoe curve’; other suggestions are a cambok in the manner of a crooked stick (ME. cambok, med.L. cambūca, see CAMMOCK); a cam bow in a crooked bow. None of these satisfies all conditions.]
[The difficulty as to a-cambok, a cam bow, is that no forms of the word show cam-, from which the earliest are the most remote. The Icel. keng-boginn comes nearer the form, but there is no evidence that it had the special sense of a-kimbo, and none that the latter ever had the general sense of ‘crooked.’ It also postulates an early Eng. series of forms like *keng-bown or *keng-bowed, *keng-bow, *akengbow, quite unknown and unaccounted for.]
Of the arms: In a position in which the hands rest on the hips and the elbows are turned outwards.
c. 1400. Beryn, 1837. The hoost … set his hond in kenebowe.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Arcade. To set his hands a kenbow.
1627. Peacham, Compl. Gent. (1634), V. xx. 247. The armes of two side-men on kenbow.
1629. Gaule, Holy Madnesse, 92. With his armes a kemboll.
a. 1642. Sir T. Urquhart, Tracts (1782), 71. With gingling spurrs, and his armes a kenbol.
1644. Bulwer, Chiron., 104 (L.). To set the arms a-gambo and a-prank.
1678. Wycherley, Plain-Dealer, II. i. 23. He has no use of his Arms, but to set ’em on kimbow.
1681. Hobbes, Rhet., III. xv. 126. Setting his arms a-kenbold.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 187, ¶ 3. She would clap her arms a kimbow.
1727. Arbuthnot, John Bull, 72. John was forced to sit with his arm a-kimbo.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), V. 317. She set her huge arms akembo.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, II. iii. 170. Putting his arms akembo with an air of defiance.
1879. Browning, Ned Bratts, 143. Both arms a-kimbo.
