Also 6–7 lurche, lurtch. [a. F. lourche (erroneously written l’ourche) a game resembling backgammon, played in the 16th c.; also used as adj. in the phr. demeurer lourche, app. primarily to incur a ‘lurch’ (see 2 below) in this game, hence fig. to be discomfited or disappointed.
Obviously related in some way to this Fr. word are early and dial. mod.G. lortsch, lurtsch, lorz, lurz, the name of a game, also as adj. in lurz werden, a phrase in various games, expressing the failure to achieve some object aimed at; MHG. lorz, lurz (also lerz), mod. Ger. dial. lurz, lurtsch left (hand), wrong, whence MDu. loorts, loyrtz, luers left; MHG. lürzen (= OE. belyrtan BELIRT v.) to deceive, whence MDu. lordsen. The most plausible supposition with regard to the relation between these words is that the MHG. lurz left, wrong, or its derivative lurtsch (cf. linksch from link), was adopted into Fr. as a gaming term (lourche adj.), and that lourche sb. as the name of a game was developed from the adj. As a name for the game, the Ger. word is probably a readoption from Fr.]
† 1. A game, no longer known, supposed to have resembled backgammon. Obs.
1611. Cotgr., Lourche, the game called Lurche.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, I. xxii. 94. There he played … At the lurch.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. xli. (1674), 57. He might account business his pastime … instead of Picquet or Lurch.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xii. 98. My Mind was only running upon the lurch and tricktrack.
2. Used in various games to denote a certain concluding state of the score, in which one player is enormously ahead of the other; often, a ‘maiden set’ or love-game, i.e., a game or set of games in which the loser scores nothing; at cribbage, a game in which the winner scores 61 before the loser has scored 31; in whist, a treble. To save the lurch: in whist, to prevent one’s adversary from scoring a treble. Now rare. (? or Obs.)
1598. Florio, Marcio, a lurch or maiden set at any game.
1606. Dekker, Sev. Sins, IV. (Arb.), 32. What by Betting, Lurches, Rubbers and such tricks, they neuer tooke care for a good daies worke afterwards. Ibid. (1608), Belman Lond., F 3. Whose Inne is a Bowling Alley, whose bookes are bowles, and whose law cases are lurches and rubbers.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, II. xii. By two of my table-men in the corner-point I have gained the lurch.
1674. Gouldman’s Lat. Dict. (ed. 3), I. A lurch, duplex palma, facilis victoria.
1742. Hoyle, Whist, i. 13. A Probability either of saving your Lurch, or winning the Game.
1745. Gentl. Mag., 606. A King!—we’re up—I vow I fear’d a lurch.
1784. H. Walpole, Lett., 14 Aug. (1858), VIII. 495. Lady Blandford has cried her eyes out on losing a lurch.
1860. Bohn’s Handbk. Games, III. 83. The game [long whist] consists of ten points; when no points are marked by the losing partners, it is treble, and reckons three points;… This is called a lurch.
1876. ‘Capt. Crawley,’ Card Players’ Man., 18. Lurch (at Long Whist), not saving the double. Ibid., 128. [Cribbage] A lurch—scoring the whole sixty-one before your adversary has scored thirty-one—is equivalent to a double game.
1897. Encycl. Sport, I. 129/2. (Bowls) Lurch game, a game in which one side has scored five before the other has scored one.
3. † a. A discomfiture. Obs.
1584. Lodge, Alarum, C ij b. If heereafter thou fall into the lyke lurch,… so then I will accompt of thee as a reprobate.
c. 1600. Peele’s Jests (c. 1620), 20. The Tapster hauing many of these lurches, fell to decay.
1608. Armin, Nest Ninn., D b. Often such forwarde deedes, meete with backward lurches.
1679. Heart & Right Soveraign, 119. The Italian out-wits the Jew in his part, and the lurch befalls the English side.
† b. To give (a person) the lurch: to discomfit, get the better of. Obs.
1598. E. Guilpin, Skial. (1878), 25. Gellia intic’d her good-man to the Citty, And often threatneth to giue him the lurch.
c. 1600[?]. Bride’s Buriall, 38, in Roxb. Ball. (1871), I. 248. Faire Hellens face gaue Grecian Dames the lurch.
1626. Breton, Pasquil’s Mad-cap (Grosart), 6/2. How ere his wit may giue the foole the lurch, He is not fit to gouerne in the Church.
† c. To have (take) on (in, at) the lurch: to have or take (a person) at a disadvantage. Obs.
1591. Greene, Disc. Coosnage (1592), 7. There was fourtie to one on my side, and ile haue you on the lurch anon.
1601. Weever, Mirr. Mart., B viij b. Shee … Sels lyes for nothing, nothing for too much; Faith for three farthings, t’haue thee in the lurch.
1615. T. Adams, Blacke Devill, 74. Thus the great Parasite of the soule that heretofore … flatterd this wretch with the paucity of his Sinnes, now takes him in the lurch, and over-reckons him.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch. Hen. IV., clx. The Sage Span of a Circle tooke the Starres at Lurch, To Conspire Storme.
1692. D’Urfey, Pills (1719), V. 3. He took me in the lurch.
† d. In a person’s lurch: in his power. Obs.
1607. R. C[arew], trans. Estienne’s World of Wonders, 195. Hauing him in his lurch and at his lure.
1641. J. Shute, Sarah & Hagar (1649), 93. They lose their authority when they come within the lurch of their servants.
1643. T. Goodwin, Trial Christian’s Growth, 127. David, when he had Saul in his lurch, might as easily have cut off his head.
e. To leave in the lurch: to leave in adverse circumstances without assistance; to leave in a position of unexpected difficulty.
Cf. the somewhat earlier phr. to leave in the lash (see LASH sb.1 4).
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, 119. Whom … he also procured to be equally bound with him for his new cousens apparence to the law, which he neuer did, but left both of them in the lurtch for him.
1600. Holland, Livy, 222. The Volscians seeing themselves abandoned and left in the lurch by them,… quit the campe and field.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. iii. 764. And though th’ art of a diff’rent Church, I will not leave thee in the lurch.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 119, ¶ 6. If the Country Gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the lurch.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1842), I. 345. In transubstantiation, where accidents are left in the lurch by their proper subject.
1873. E. FitzGerald, Lett. (1889), I. 357. My Eyes have been leaving me in the lurch again.
1879. Browning, Martin Relph, 66. He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch.
† 4. A cheat, swindle. Obs.
(In our quots. the earliest recorded use.)
1533. J. Heywood, Pardoner & Friar (1830), B iv. No more of this wranglyng in my chyrch, I shrewe your hartys both for this lurche.
a. 1500. Image Hypocr., I. in Skelton’s Wks. (1843), II. 432/2. They blered hym with a lurche.
1604. T. M., Black Bk., E iv. I giue and bequeath to thee … All such Lurches, Gripes, and Squeezes, as may bee wrung out by the fist of extortion.
1611. Badley, in Coryat’s Crudities, Panegyr. Verses. Briefly, for triall of a religious lurch Thou nimbd’st an image out of Brixias Church.
1616[?]. Chapman, Hymn to Hermes, 63. I’le have a scape, as well as he a serch, And over take him with a greater lurch.
