or fullams, subs. (old).—Loaded dice; called ‘high’ or ‘low’ FULHAMS as they were intended to turn up high or low. Cf., GOURDS. [Conjecturally, because manufactured at Fulham, or because that village was a notorious resort of blacklegs.] For synonyms, see UPHILLS.

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  1594.  NASHE, The Unfortunate Traveller, in wks. v., 27. The dice of late are growen as melancholy as a dog, high men and low men both prosper alike, langrets, FULLAMS, and all the whole fellowshippe of them will not affoord a man his dinner.

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  1596.  SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 3.

          Pist.  Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd, and FULLAM holds,
And high and low beguile the rich and poor.

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  1599.  JONSON, Every Man out of his Humour, iii., 1. Car. Who! he serve? ’sblood, he keeps high men, and low men, he! he has—fair living at Fullam. [Whalley’s note in Gifford’s Jonson, ‘The dice were loaded to run high or low; hence they were called high men or low men, and sometimes high and low FULLAMS. Called FULLAMS either because F. was the resort of sharpers, or because they were chiefly made there.]

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  1664.  BUTLER, Hudibras, Part II., C. i., l. 642.

        But I do wonder you should chuse
This way t’ attack me with your Muse,
As one cut out to pass your tricks on,
With FULHAMS of poetick fiction.
  [Note in Dr. Nash’s Ed., vol. I., p. 272 (Ed. 1835). ‘That is, with cheats or impositions. FULHAM was a cant word for a false die, many of them being made at that place.’]

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  1822.  SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xxiii. Men talk of high and low dice, FULHAMS and bristles … and a hundred ways of rooking besides.

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  2.  (colloquial).—A sham; a MAKE-BELIEVE (q.v.). [From sense 1.]

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  1664.  BUTLER, Hudibras, ii., 1. FULHAMS of poetick fiction.

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