Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Wamble?!

Wamble
I know. You are just dying to know what Wamble means.  You are? Great. I get to keep you waiting for even longer!


So how was your day?



Awesome!



My day? Oh, it was fine. I ate cereal.  I can't wait for Halloween. Ooh! That reminds me! I have to have something spooooooooky for next week's word............
I don't know how I'll do that...

Okay. You've waited long enough.
Wamble is both a verb and a noun.  The verb portion of it means "An unsettling, weaving, and rolling motion (of a stomach), to feel nausea." So, whenever your stomach is rumbling, it is not. It is wambleing.  The noun is the counterpart to that.  A wamble(n.) is a stomach rumble.  But I like my family's responses more...
Jessie: "A type of walk, like a waddle. But a wamble. Penguins."
Mom: "A pumpkin that looks like Robert Plant."
Pop-sicle: "The process of stalling when you don't know the answer to a question your son asks you."
The only conclusion that I have drawn from those answers is that my family is astronomically insane.
The origin of the word wamble is unknown, but it has been around since at least 1887.  In Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders (1887), it is said "She may Shail, but she'll never wamble".  In this case, Hardy uses the word to mean to wobble or totter, to walk with an unsteady gait. (Merriam Webster Dictionary)  As the word has no recorded usage before that, it is rumored that Hardy himself invented the word.  Nowadays, the word is hardly used, and used mainly for things like Blogs run by... Me...
Wamble's origin is actually unknown, though it is thought to have come from the Latin word vomere and the Norwegian Vamia. I understand where people are coming from when they say this.  But very vaguely. I mean, Vamia kind of sounds like wamble.  
I really wish I could continue, but there is hardly any information...
                             By the way, my next word will be... Zugzwang...
A truly frightening word, indeed.

1 comment:

  1. This word has a great sound. Like a drunkard talking about a ramble.

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