the verb-stem in combination:
1. with substantives: tumble-bug = tumble-dung; tumble-car, -cart: see quots.; tumble-dung, name in U.S. for a scarabæid beetle that rolls up balls of dung, in which it deposits its eggs and in which the larvæ go through their transformations; a dung-beetle; also attrib.; tumble fruit, fallen fruit, windfalls; tumble-rose, a species of the parrot-fish, Scarus cæruleus, found on the Atlantic coast from southern U.S. to Brazil (Cent. Dict. Suppl., 1909); † tumble-turd = tumble-dung; tumble-weed, name in U.S. for various plants that form a globular bush which in late summer is broken off and rolled about by the wind; a rolling weed (ROLLING ppl. a. 6).
1848. Lowell, Biglow Papers, Ser. I. II. 62, note. *Tumblebug.
1868. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 86. The best known and most common beetle of this family in this country is the Canton lævis, usually termed the tumble-bug.
1794. J. Bailey & Culley, Agric. Cumberld., 31. We suppose they had the name of *tumble carrs, from the axle being made fast in the wheels, and the whole turning or tumbling round together.
1887. Suppl. to Jamieson, s.v., The *tumble-cart, tumbler, or car, continued in use in the upland districts till the beginning of the present century.
1775. R. Twiss, Trav. Portugal & Sp., 247. The beetle, known by the name of *tumble-dung.
1798. in Spirit Pub. Jrnls. (1799), II. 355. The scarabæus carnifex, or tumble-dung-beetle.
1880. [Mary Allan-Olney], New Virginians, I. 103. The humble rusty-black ’tumbledung.’
1891. B’ham Weekly Post, 8 Aug., 4/7. Babies, like *tumble fruit, everywhere.
1754. Catesby, Carolina, II. App. The *Tumble Turds. Scarabæus pillularis Americanus. Scarabæus carnifex, L.
1857. Knoxville Register, 14 May, 4/4. Among all the examples chosen from the innumerable productions of Nature to illustrate natural theology, I do not recollect to have seen the *Tumble Weed, as it is commonly called, (I have not looked out the Botanical name), and yet if it is not a speaking witness, it is a living, moving witness that there is an intelligent Creature.
1887. Amer. Nat., Oct., 930. Amarantus albus, the common tumble-weed.
2. with adverbs: tumble home, in a ship, = tumbling home (TUMBLING vbl. sb. b); tumble-over, sb. an act of falling over; concr. a toy so weighted that it always takes a position of equilibrium; also attrib. inclined to fall down, rickety, tottering: tumble-up, ? a tumbler having a very heavy base which tends to keep it erect. See also TUMBLE-DOWN.
1833. T. Richardson, Merc. Marine Archit., 13. Giving only six inches *tumble home of the topside.
1874. Thearle, Naval Archit., 60. When the ship has considerable beam, the breadth of the channel is kept within reasonable limits by giving a ‘tumble home’ to the top-sides.
1883. Black, Shandon Bells, xxx. But the gable of the house is a leetle *tumble-over, isn’t it?
1895. Outing (U.S.), XXVI. 380/1. Those lead-weighted, pith ‘tumble-overs,’ with which we played when children.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VI. 51. He was suddenly seized with intense darting pain in the region of the heart … accompanied by a sensation of ‘tumble over’ of the organ.
1891. Sale Catal. Glass Wks. Stourbridge. Seventy-one *tumble-ups.
