[f. THIMBLE + RIG sb.5 2; lit. ‘thimble-trick.’]
1. A swindling game usually played with three thimbles (see THIMBLE 2 c) and a pea which was ostensibly placed under one of them; the sharper then challenging the bystanders to guess under which the pea had been placed, and to bet on their choice; a cheat similar to the three-card trick.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 768. An unfair game known among the frequenters of races and fairs by the name of ‘the thimble rig.’
1836. T. Hook, G. Gurney, vii. I will start alone, and appear to know no more of you, than one of the cads of the thimble-rig knows of the pea-holder.
1856 J. D. Chambers, Strictures on Judgm. in Westerton v. Liddell, 139, note. The manipulations of a sharper with cups and balls on his gambling table, commonly called thimblerig.
1893. Leland, Mem., I. 13. All kinds of ‘fakirs,’ as they are now termed, selling doughnuts, spruce-beer, and gingerbread, or tempting the adventurous with thimblerig.
attrib. and Comb. 1834. Littleton, in Hansard’s Parl. Deb., 4 July, XXIV. 1206. His right hon. friend (Mr. Stanley) … had chosen to describe him (Mr. Littleton) as a thimble-rig player, in consequence of the changes that he had made in the clauses of that Bill.
1856. T. A. Trollope, Girlhd. Cath. de Med., Notes, 352. A good deal of confusion as to the dates of these thimblerig-like transactions exists in the narratives of the historians.
1886. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, xviii. (ed. 3), 157. Epsom Downs…. There are … tumblers, jugglers, boxers, thimble-rig men.
2. = THIMBLERIGGER.
1839. Fraser’s Mag., XX. 355. Greatly applauded by all the thimblerigs of the fauxbourgs.
