Obs. exc. dial. [onomatopœic, cf. BUNGLE, JUMBLE, FUMBLE.]
1. A confusion, jumble.
1648. Jenkyn, Blind Guide, i. 15. A bumble of musty reasons.
1660. S. Fisher, Rusticks Alarm, Wks. (1679), 427. With many more Bumbles of their Senses, Meanings, Opinions.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Bumble, Cloaths setting in a heap, or ruck.
1847–78. Halliwell, Bumble, a confused heap. North.
2. A bumbler or blunderer; an idler. (Cf. batie-bummil, BATIE-BUM; also BUMBLE sb.1 2 a.)
1786. Burns, Sc. Bard gone W. Ind., iv. Some drowsy bummle, Wha can do nought but fyke an’ fumble.
1789. Davidson, Seasons, 181 (Jam.). The Muse … ca’d me bumble.
¶ 3. Associated with this is the name of the beadle in Dickens’s Oliver Twist (see BUMBLEDOM): sometimes used attrib.
1856. Sat. Rev., II. 416/2. It will, we fear, be useless to impress upon the great Bumble mind, [etc.].
4. attrib. and comb., as bumble-bath, bumble-broth, ? a mess, ‘pickle, soapsuds’; also with sense of ‘clumsy, unwieldy’: bumble-foot, a club foot; bumble-footed, club-footed.
1661. K. W., Conf. Charac. (1860), 56. A hog in armour, just such another bumble-arst furfact piece of mortality.
1595. Marocous Ext. (1843), 17. Such carrion as lies there in their bumble baths.
1602. Dekker, Satirom., Wks. 1873, I. 218. If I might ha my wil, thou shouldst not put thy spoone into that bumble-broth.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Praise Clean Linn., Wks. II. 169/1. Laundresses are testy … When they are lathering in their bumble broth.
1861. H. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, xli. (D.). She died mostly along of Mr. Malone’s bumble foot … he being drunk and bumble-footed too.
