Thimble

sb. Forms: α. 1 pýmel, 5–6 thymelle, -yl(le, thymle, themel, -elle, -yl(le, (5 thomelle, timmele), 9 dial. thimmel. β. 5 thymbyl(l, thomble, 6 thymble, -bel(l, -bil(l, thumble, (tymble), 6–7 thimbell, 6– thimble. [OE. þýmel, f. þúma THUMB + -el, -LE, suffix forming names of instruments: cf. handle. The later Eng. form has developed a b after m, as in humble, nimble, etc. ON., þumall meant the thumb of a glove; perh. a leather thumbstall was the earliest form of thimble; metal thimbles were app. introduced in the 17th c.]

  † 1.  A sheath or covering for the thumb or finger; a fingerstall. Obs. (Only OE.)

c. 1000.  Sax. Leechd., II. 150. Wyrc þonne þymel to.

  2.  A bell-shaped sheath of metal (formerly of leather) worn on the end of the finger to push the needle in sewing.

  Tailor’s, upholsterer’s, etc., thimble, a similar metal sheath open at both ends; sail-maker’s thimble = PALM sb.² 5. Knight of the thimble, a tailor: see Knight sb. 12 c.

  α.  c. 1412.  Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 682. Look whedir In þis purs þer be any croyse or crouche, Sauf nedel and þrede, & themel [MS. Reg. thymelle] of leþer.

14[?].  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 578/29. Digitale, a themyl.

1483.  Cath. Angl., 383/1. A Themelle (A. Thymbylle, Thymle).

1488.  Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., I. 80. A thing of gold with a top like a timmele.

a. 1568.  in Bannatyne Poems (Hunter. Cl.), 396. With elwand, scheir and thymmill.

  β.  c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 491/1. Thymbyl, theca,… digita.

14[?].  Debate Carpenter’s Tools, 18, in Hazl., E. P. P., I. 80. Ȝis, ȝis, seyd the wymbylle, I ame als rounde as a thymbyll.

1530.  Palsgr., 280/2. Thymble to sowe with, deyl.

1591.  Florio, 2nd Fruites, 5. I haue neither needle, thred, nor thimble.

1664.  Power, Exp. Philos., I. 5. The Common Fly … her eyes are … most neatly dimpled with innumerable little cavities like a small grater or thimble.

1700.  Congreve, Way of World, III. iii. Hast thou ne’er a brass thimble clinking in thy pocket?

1793.  Girlhood M. J. Holroyd (1896), 253. I have worked with my Thimble, and like it extremely.

1812.  [see KNIGHT sb. 12 c].

1841.  Moore, Young Jessica, i. The safest shield against the darts Of Cupid, is Minerva’s thimble.

  b.  Thimble and Bodkin Army (Eng. Hist.): a nickname of the Parliamentary Army of the Civil War: see quots.

1647.  May, Hist. Parl., II. vi. 97. The poorer sort, like that Widow in the Gospel, presented their Mites also; insomuch that it was a common Jeer of men disaffected to the Cause, to call it the Thimble- and Bodkin-Army.

1884.  Dowell, Taxes in Eng., II. i. 3. On the parliamentary side the subscriptions of silver offerings included even such little personal articles as those that suggested the term, the ‘Thimble and Bodkin’ army.

  c.  A thimble or similar article as used by a thimblerigger: see THIMBLERIG 1.

1716.  Gay, Trivia, II. 166. Nor try the Thimble’s Cheats.

1742.  Fielding, Jos. Andrews, II. iii. A person travelling to a neighbouring fair with the thimble and button.

1838.  Dickens, Nich. Nick., l. Gathered round a pea and thimble table.

1909.  Q. Rev., July, 173. A conjuror … astonishing a simple audience with the pea-and-thimble trick.

  3.  The ring or socket in the heel of a gate which turns on the hook or pin in the gate-post. local.

1550.  Hawkhurst Ch. Acc., in Archæol. Cantiana, V. 64. For a thymble to the churche gate ij^d.

1627.  MS. Acc. St. John’s Hosp., Canterb. For ij thimbles for the beane garden gate xvj d.

1804.  Trans. Soc. Arts, XXII. 83. The upper thimble should be fixed … nearer the farther side of the heel of the gate than the lower thimble.

1881.  Leicestersh. Gloss.

  4.  Naut. A broad ring of metal, having a concave outer surface, around which the end of a rope is spliced, so that the thimble forms an eye to the rope.

1711.  W. Sutherland, Shipbuild. Assist., 132. Thimbles, large … 34. Ordinary … 118.

1775.  Falck, Day’s Diving Vessel, 50. Each cable has a large thimble spliced in at one end, through which each alternate cable is reeved.

1860.  Merc. M. Mag., VII. 113. A leach-line is … carried through thimbles.

  5.  In various technical applications. a. Mech. A ring, tube, or similar part, e.g., a sleeve, bushing, ferrule, etc.; often in comb., as thimble-coupling, -joint, etc.: see 9. b. The outer casing of a rifle-ball. c. Pottery: A rest for placing the ware during glost-firing. d. Dentistry: see quot. e. A cone of fat-free paper used in a fat-extraction apparatus. f. = thimble-rubber in 9. g. See quot.

  a.  1789.  Trans. Soc. Arts, VII. 179. Thimbles made of wire, twisted in the slit of the harpoon.

1831.  J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, I. 184. Fitting into the holes bushes or thimbles to give them the greater strength.

1877.  Knight, Dict. Mech., Thimble.… 3. (Machinery.) a. A sleeve or tube through which a bolt passes, and which may act as a stay. b. A ferrule to expand a tube; specifically, a ferrule for boiler-tubes. 4. A sleeve around a stove-pipe when it passes through a wall or ceiling.

1881.  Greener, Gun, 84. The charge is put in a small steel thimble.

  b.  c. 1860.  H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 11. The thimble expands and rifles the ball.

1900.  Brit. Med. Jrnl., No. 2053. 1156. The thimble or shell of the Mauser and Lee-Metford. Ibid. The core is of hardened lead, and the thimble composed of copper and nickel.

  c.  1901.  [see thimble-picker in 9].

1910.  Rep. Lead Comm. (Parl. Pap. Eng.). Placing the ware on rests with pointed projections … ‘Thimbles’ similar in shape to a sewing thimble,… provided with a single horn.

  d.  1877.  Knight, Dict. Mech., 2554/1. The extension thimble of the dentist is a prong on the end of the thimble, used to reach into the mouth to hold the foil or a compress, while operating on the teeth.

  e.  1901.  Jrnl. Exper. Med., 25 March, 515. This residue was then ground up with sand, placed in a fat-extraction thimble and extracted again.

  f.  1909.  Cent. Dict., Suppl.,Thimble,… pl. a trade-name for crude india-rubber from the lower Kongo and Loanda in small balls of a gray color, darker outside.

  g.  1541.  R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg., L iij. Thyrdly a seame incarnatyfe is made with egal themylles made of towe well wrythen & sklenderly.

  6.  Applied (usually in pl.) to certain flowers and plants, or parts of them, e.g., (a) the Foxglove, also known as Fairy or Witches’ Thimbles; (b) the Sea Campion; (c) the Harebell; (d) the cup of an acorn. See also Lady’s Thimble, LADY sb. 17 b.

1873.  Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, I. 150. Nor its fine thimble fits the acorn top.

1878.  Britten & Holland, Plant-n., Fairy Thimbles, Digitalis purpurea.

1881.  J. A. Sidey, in Mod. Scot. Poets, 396. Whaur the witch thummles bloom.

1886.  Britten & H., Plant-n., Thimble, (1) Digitalis purpurea … (2) Silene maritima.

1894.  Daily News, 23 April, 6/5. The tall foxglove, with its graduated ‘thimbles.’

  7.  Thieves’ slang. A watch.

1812.  in J. H. Vaux, Flash Dict.

1834.  W. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, III. v. My thimble of ridge.

1901.  W. S. Walker, In the Blood, xiii. 138. Silver money, and a watch and chain, or, in thieves’ language, ‘white-lot’ and ‘thimble and slang.’

  8.  = THIMBLEFUL.

1841.  Hood, Tale of Trumpet, xii. [They] never swallowed a thimble the less Of something the Reader is left to guess.

1865.  Bushnell, Vicar. Sacr., Introd. (1868), 24. Such thimbles of meaning as can be confidently managed.

  9.  attrib. and Comb., as thimble-case, finger, -headed, -maker, -top; thimble-crowned, -like, -sealed, -shaped, -sized adjs.; thimble-belt, a kind of cartridge-belt; thimble-berry (thimble blackberry), the black raspberry of America, Rubus occidentalis, so called from the shape of its receptacle; thimble-coupling: see quot.; thimble-grater, a species of gastropod shell; thimble-joint: see quot.; thimble lily, a name of the Australian liliaceous plant Blandfordia nobilis, with flowers in racemes; thimble-limpet, a West Indian species of limpet, so called from its shape; thimble-man = THIMBLERIGGER; thimble-picker, a young person employed in a pottery to pick from among the used thimbles (see sense 5 c) those that can be used a second time: so thimble-picking; thimble-pie: see quots.; thimble-plating, the formation of a cylindrical boiler-shell or a flue by successive slightly overlapping rings of plate; thimble-rubber: see quots.; thimble-shift, -shifting, the shifting of the pea from one thimble to another by a thimblerigger; also fig.; thimble-skein, a skein for an axle made in tubular form; thimble-surface, Ceramics, a surface of raised dots produced by closely pitting the interior of the mold; thimble-weed: see quot.

1901.  N. Amer. Rev., Feb., 231. The *thimble belt, used only by the Americans, is still preferred to the cartridge pouches of the others.

1854.  Thoreau, Walden, xiv. (1886), 262. Strawberries, raspberries, *thimble-berries.

1883.  Stevenson, Silverado Sq., iii. A bower of green and tangled thicket … where thimbleberry played the part of our English hawthorn.

1715.  Lady M. W. Montagu, Basset-Table, 34. A myrtle foliage round the *thimble-case.

1882.  Ogilvie, *Thimble-coupling.… In mach. a kind of permanent coupling, of which the coupling-box consists of a plain ring of metal, supposed to resemble a tailor’s thimble.

1876.  H. Gardner, Sunflowers, Dream of Noon, 48. Then she Raising a slender finger, *thimble-crowned, Beckoned him onwards.

1796.  Burney, Mem. Metastasio, III. 277. A whitloe in the stitching or *thimble finger.

c. 1711.  Petiver, Gazophyl., VI. liv. Borneo *Thimble Grater…. The outside is rough like a Grater, and hollow like a Cap or Thimble.

1851.  Dean Dudley, Pictures of Life in England and America, 76. What should meet her sight but a poor, little, *thimble-headed, patch-eared tailor at a window.

1877.  Knight, Dict. Mech., *Thimble-joint, a sleeve-joint, with an interior packing to keep the joints of pipes tight during expansion and contraction.

1899.  Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 602. The minute honey-combed, *thimble-like appearance of its surface.

1883.  Guilfoyle, Catal. Plants Melbourne Bot. Gard., 22. Blandfordia nobilis … *Thimble Lily.

c. 1711.  Petiver, Gazophyl., Dec. viii. Tab. 80. Barbadoes *Thimble Limpet.

1654.  Nicholas Papers (Camden), II. 116. For other his undertakinges [he] is a *thimble-maker…, a meere cheat that rambles up and doun, not worth on farthing.

1830.  Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 192. The army of *thimble-men from Doncaster is upon you.

1901.  Scotsman, 28 March, 9/1. Persons are returned … as *thimble-pickers, without mentioning that they are directly engaged in making … earthenware.

1828.  Craven Gloss., *Thimble-pie, a fillip with the thimble.

1882.  Mozley, Remin., II. cviii. 245. I had to sit under the lady’s three-legged work table, receiving ‘thimble-pie,’ that is a sharp rap with a thimble on the crown of my head.

1881.  Rep. Kew Gardens, 39/2. W. African rubber … appears as agglutinated masses of small cubes of which there are specimens in the Kew Museum under the name of *Thimble rubber.

1840.  Thackeray, Catherine, i. The dirty scrap of paper, *thimble-sealed.

1867.  Thimble-shaped [see THIMBLE-EYE].

1905.  Daily News, 1 Aug., 4. [A bee’s] thimble-shaped cell.

1834.  Hist., in Ann. Reg., 90/1. About twenty per cent. was to be deducted from the tithe-owner [etc.]. This was *thimble-shift the first.

1834.  Stanley, in Hansard’s Parl. Deb., 4 July, XXIV. 1154. How was this deficiency to be made good to the State? Here, then, was one instance of his right hon. friend’s *thimble-shifting.

1895.  Clive Holland, Jap. Wife (ed. 11), 121. The little silver pipe with its *thimble-sized bowl.

1874.  Knight, Dict. Mech., 144/2. Arm … the axle-spindle. When of wood, it is strengthened by metallic straps called skeins, and sometimes by a conical sheath called a *thimble-skein.

1879.  H. Drummond, in Life, vii. (1899), 166. The spurts come up in little domes, some only the size of a *thimble-top.

1860.  Bartlett, Dict. Amer., *Thimble-weed. (Rudbeckia.) … Like the Thimble-berry, its receptacle resembles a thimble.

  Hence Thimble v., intr. to use a thimble, to sew; Thimbling vbl. sb. and ppl. a., using a thimble in sewing; also = thimblerigging.

1659.  H. M., Pair Spectacles Nation, 4. Cobling Hewson, Cooper, thimbling Barkstead, Bury, and the rest of their Confederates.

1780.  Beckford, Italy (1834), I. v. 38. Pretty sempstresses, warbling melodious hymns as they sat needling and thimbling at their windows above.

1856.  J. Ballantine, Poems, Wee Raggit Laddie, xiv. Ilk thimblin’ thievin’ gamblin’ diddler … Chase thee like fire.

1857.  Borrow, Rom. Rye, xliv. If you have not sufficient capital, why do you engage in so deep a trade as thimbling?