[app. a popular variation of CRAMBE: cf. senses 1 b and 4.]
1. A game in which one player gives a word or line of verse to which each of the others has to find a rhyme.
1660. Pepys, Diary, 20 May. From thence to the Hague again playing at Crambo in the waggon.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 63, ¶ 6. A Cluster of Men and Women … diverting themselves at a Game of Crambo.
1712. Steele, Ibid. No. 504, ¶ 1. Those who can play at Crambo, or cap Verses.
1721. Bailey, Crambo, a Play in Rhiming, in which he that repeats a Word that was said before, forfeits something.
1837. Blackw. Mag., XLI. 299/1. A sort of Hellenic crambo—Hesiod singing one verse, and Homer filling up the meaning with another.
b. Dumb crambo: a game in which one set of players have to guess a word agreed upon by the other set, after being told what word it rhymes with, by acting in dumb show one word after another till they find it. (Sometimes transf. = dumb show.)
1826. Praed, Poems (1864), I. 293. One finds my pretty chambermaid, And courts her in dumb crambo. Ibid. (a. 1839), I. 66. And showed suspicions in dumb crambo.
1864. Lond. Society, VI. 499, heading. Charades and Dumb Crambo.
1884. ‘Edna Lyall,’ We Two, xxxiii. Brush your hair with your hands! This is something between Dumb Crambo and Mulberry Bush!
2. transf. Rhyme, rhyming: said in contempt.
1697. Prior, Sat. mod. Transl., 92, Wks. (1892), II. 362. Rymer to Crambo privelege does claim Not from the poet’s genius, but his name.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 6. 2/2. For Faith the freedom of Dear Cuz, Pop’d out as Crambo pat to Buzz.
1720. Swift, To Stella. His similies in order set, And ev’ry crambo he cou’d get.
1828. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 142. A page or two of such crambo.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, lxxxiv. Every scribbler he permits embalm His crambo in the Journal’s corner!
† 3. A fashion in drinking. Obs. (Cf. CRAMBE 3, quot. 1630.)
1606. Dekker, Sev. Sinnes, I. (Arb.), 12. And were drunke according to all the learned rules of Drunkennes, as Vpsy-Freeze, Crambo, Parmizant, &c.
1617. T. Young, England’s Bane (Brand). He is a Man of no Fashion that cannot drinke Supernaculum, carouse the Hunters Hoop, quaffe Upseyfresse Crosse, bowse in Permoysaunt, in Pimlico, in Crambo.
† 4. = CRAMBE, repetition. Also attrib. Obs.
c. 1670. Marvell, Hist. Poem, 87. And with dull crambo feed the silly sheep.
1705. W. S. Perry, Hist. Coll. Amer. Col. Ch., I. 154. Stuffing every half page … with his crambo Storys.
5. attrib. and Comb., as crambo-rhyme, -song; crambo-clink, -jingle = sense 2.
1762. Lloyd, Odes, Oblivion, ii. 9. Sacred to thee the crambo rhyme.
1785. Burns, Ep. to Lapraik, viii. Amaist as soon as I could spell, I to the crambo-jingle fell. Ibid. (1786), On Scotch Bard, i. A’ ye wha live by crambo-clink.
1789. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 19 Feb. A crambo song, on his own name.
1876. Clerk, in D. Macleod’s Life N. Macleod, I. iii. 33. He would improvise crambo rhymes.
