Forms: see the verb. [f. TREMBLE v.]
1. An act or the action of trembling; a fit or state of trembling; a tremor; a vibration.
1609. Bible (Douay), 2 Esdras xv. 37. They shal shake … and tremble shal take them.
1677. Phil. Trans., XII. 836. (According to him) Sound may be caused by the tremble of solid bodies without the presence of gross Air.
1719, 1760–72. [see b].
1775. Ash, Tremble (s. colloquial, from the verb), a tremor.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xxvii. A terrible tremble crept over her whole frame.
1884. T. Woolner, Silenus, I. II. 21. Sitting beside the reeds He saw a tremble shivering thro’ their leaves.
1894. ‘Ian Maclaren,’ Bonnie Brier Bush, Cunning Sp. Drumtochty (1895), 185. He micht gie a bit trimmil.
b. In colloq. phrases (all) in, all of a tremble, on or upon the tremble, trembling, esp. with agitation or excitement.
1719. Miss Howe, in Lett. C’tess Suffolk (1824), I. 39. Mama has invited me to stay here,… which put me in such a tremble that I am hardly recovered.
1760–72. H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), II. 151. I am already all of a tremble.
1800. Lamb, Lett. to Manning. I am still on the tremble, for I do not know where we could go.
1818. Coleridge, in Lit. Rem. (1836), I. 206. Why should I be in such a tremble all the while he talked?
1830. Chron., in Ann. Reg., 35/2. He seemed all of a totter and tremble.
c. Tremulousness or unsteadiness (of the voice) caused by emotion.
1779. Mirror, No. 54, ¶ 13. There is a melting tremble in her voice, which … is inimitably beautiful and affecting.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, xxxiii. A deep impassioned earnestness … that made the very tremble in her voice a part of her firmness.
2. pl. The trembles: Any disease or condition characterized by an involuntary shaking, as ague or palsy (esp. in sheep); the tremor due to mercurialism, delirium tremens, etc.; the ‘shakes’; in N. Amer., milk-sickness (MILK sb. 10).
1812. J. Walker, Ess. Nat. Hist., 525. Ovis in pascuis montosis morbo obnoxia est, hactenus insanabili,… the Trembles.
1848. A. S. Taylor, Poisons, xxxiii. 561. The disease produced by the use of the flesh or milk of animals fed in these districts, is known under the name of milk-sickness, or trembles.
1860. Mayne, Expos. Lex., Trembles, a popular term for the disorder mercurial tremor.
1864. Hawthorne, S. Felton (1883), 321. A hardness of hearing, and a dimness of sight, and the trembles.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., IV. viii. What are popularly called ‘the trembles’ being in full force upon him.
1887. Buck’s Handbk. Med. Sc., V. 9/1. The flesh of an animal suffering from trembles … would also produce the disease [milk-sickness].
3. The American aspen, Populus tremuloides.
1749. in Rep. Comm. Ho. Comm., II. 246/2 (Hudson’s Bay Co.). The Beavers chiefest Food is, the Poplar or Tremble.
1770. J. R. Forster, trans. Kalm’s Trav. N. Amer. (1772), II. 356. They likewise make use of those which grow on the asp-tree or tremble.
