north. dial. [Origin not ascertained.] trans. To card (wool), esp. for the first time, in preparation for the finer cards. Also, to mix wool of different colors. Hence Tumming vbl. sb., the action or process of doing this; concr. coarse cardings of wool; also Tummer: see quots. 1877, 1884.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., iii. 88. After your wooll is oild … you shall then tumme it; which is, you shall … card it ouer againe vpon your Stocke cards: And then those cardings which you strike off are called tummings. Ibid. After your Wooll is thus mixed oiled and tummed, you shall then Spinne it vpon great Wooll wheeles.
1691. Ray, N. C. Words, 77. To Tum Wooll; to mix Wooll of divers colours.
1703. Thoresby, Lett. to Ray, Gloss. (E.D.S.), Tooming, wool taken off the cards.
1788. W. Marshall, Yorksh., II. Gloss. (E.D.S.), Tum, v., to card wool roughly, to prepare it for the finer cards.
1822. Lonsdale Mag., Jan., 13/1. I thought my father had a neater method of mixing the black and white wool, in tumming.
1877. Encycl. Brit., VI. 494/2. The carding engines [in cotton-manufacture] are often made with two main cylinders and a connecting cylinder called the tummer.
1878–81. Cumberld. Gloss., Tummins, rough cardings of wool. Ibid. (1879), Suppl., Toom, tum, to tease wool.
1884. R. Marsden, Cotton Spinning (1891), 129. In these cards there are two large cylinders, the first being stripped by a doffer cylinder called a slow tummer.
