英和和英

名詞

dimber damber (複数形 dimber dambers)

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) The leader of a group of thieves or vagrants.
   • 1812, Goadby, Robert, The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew‎^[1], new edition, original published 1745, W. Salter Tiverton, page 280:

     First, a new name is given him, by which he is ever after to be called; then, standing up in the middle of the assembly, and directing his face to the dimber damber, or principal man of the gang, he repeats the following oath, which is dictated to him by some experienced member of the fraternity.

   • 1837, William Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, page 208:

     Dick Turpin must be one of us. He shall be our dimber damber.

   • 1992, Suzannah Davis, Dance of Deception, →ISBN, page 140:

     Smasher has the ear of every dimber damber in the city.

同意語

• See Thesaurus:criminal leader

参照

• Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors (1889–1890), “dimber damber”, in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant […], volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: […] The Ballantyne Press, →OCLC, page 310.
• Farmer, John Stephen (1891) Slang and Its Analogues‎^[2], volume 2, page 287