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You are here: Home / Language / Where does the word “thimblerig” come from and What does thimblerig mean?

Where does the word “thimblerig” come from and What does thimblerig mean?

May 29, 2020 by Karen Hill

The trick may have been practiced in the time of the Pharaohs; if not, probably some variant of it was.

Certainly someone then knew that the hand is quicker than the eye.

In England it was known as “the thimble trick” two and a half centuries ago, and then, as now, the trickster at horserace or fair would exhibit a pea and three thimbles or small cups, then, at first with modest wager, challenge a bystander to guess under which thimble he had hidden the pea.

A hundred years later, when rig became a slang term for “to cheat or trick,” our present word thimblerig came into use, and it was, of course, a simple step to transfer the application to any form of trickery or jugglery.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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