tiddlywinks

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[edit] English

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[edit] Alternative spellings

The original spelling, starting in 1889, is "Tiddledy-Winks", which was the original trademarked name for the game in the UK and also used in the USA. "Tiddlywinks" is the preferred modern spelling; the earliest known use of this spelling is 1894. The spelling "Tidley Winks" was common in England in the 1930s to late 1940s. Many other spellings are also encountered.

[edit] Noun

Singular
tiddlywinks

Plural
uncountable

tiddlywinks (uncountable)

  1. A game in which the objective is to shoot winks into a cup or at a target by flicking them with a shooter (nowadays called a squidger) from a surface.
  2. A competitive partnership game in which the objective is to gain an advantage over opponents by squopping opponent winks and by squidging friendly winks into a pot.

[edit] Quotations

    • 1890 (Jan. 18): Notes and Queries magazine
      Lately a game has been introduced here bearing the name of 'tiddledywinks'.
    • 1891 (Dec. 6): New York Times, Macy's advertisement, page 1
      All the newest and most popular games of the season, including ... TIDDLE DE WINKS ...
    • 1892: Journal of Lady Emily (Lytton) Lutyens, as published in A Blessed Girl (1953)
      After dinner we all played the most exciting game ever invented, called Tiddleywinks.
    • 1894 (Aug.): Contemporary Review magazine, page 246
      For when school was done and work over the children gathered in the brilliantly lit, hot-pipe-heated rooms and played draughts, bagatelle, lotto, or tiddly-winks.
    • 1909: Century Dictionary Supplement
      tiddledewinks, n. A trivial game in which the players try to make small counters jump into a box, by pressing on their edges with another counter.
    • 1922: James Joyce, Ulysses
      ... parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks... )
    • 1926 (Sep.): Bookman magazine, page 90
      The great realist plays an amusing game of tiddlywinks in the north woods.
    • 1937: Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconvential English
      Tiddlywinks is considered a feeble, futile game.
    • 1957 (Dec. 17): The Times, London
      The subtle art of tiddlywinks. Here all depends upon the steady hand, the strong nerve, the experienced eye... Tempers are never lost.
    • 1958: The Observer Saying of the Year, London
      We look to tiddlywinks to get us back to the primeval simplicity of life. -- Rev. E. A. Willis
    • 1969 (Sept.): Playboy, page 195
      MIT's two saving graces are the tiddlywinks championship of North America and incredible graffiti.

[edit] Translations

In most languages other than English, the name of the game translates as "game of the flea". (Exceptions below are Afrikaans (translates to "disc game") and Esperanto ("hop disc").) Courtesy http://www.tiddlywinks.org/lexicon/tw_in_other_languages.html

[edit] See also

A complete tiddlywinks lexicon is available at http://www.tiddlywinks.org/lexicon. The best known tiddlywinks terms are:

[edit] References

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