toodlum buck

English

Alternative forms

• doodlem-buck
• doodle-em-buck
• toodlembuc
• toodlembuck
• toodlumbuck
• toodle-em-buck

Noun

toodlum buck (uncountable)

1. (New Zealand, Canada, obsolete) The game of crown and anchor.
   • 1933, Slang To-Day and Yesterday, Eric Partridge, London: Routledge & Kegal Paul, page 294:

     toodle-em-buck, the game of crown and anchor

   • 1941 (July 11), “Whitcombes Sale” advertisement, The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, page 1:

     TOODLUM BUCKS: A Crown and Anchor game, 10/6 for 7/6.

2. (Australia, archaic) A betting game involving a spinner marked with horses’ names.
   • 1939 (August 1), Hansard of the 33rd Parliament of Victoria, Volume 207, page 638:

     I regard these games as more or less of the same class as the Toodlum-buck I played when a youngster.

   • 1960, “The “Toodlembuck”—Australian children’s gambling device and game”, Dorothy Howard, Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 73, No. 287 (Jan.–Mar. 1960), pages 53–54:

     But children of the early 1900's had a gambling custom—extinct now, as far as I could learn—claiming the picturesque name of “Toodlembuck” and employing a unique handmade gambling wheel and “cherry bobs” (cherry stones cherries are in season at Melbourne Cup time) for money.

3. (Australia) The piece of wood (cat) that is struck in tipcat.
4. (New Zealand) A carnival game in which marbles were thrown at holes or at buttons on the ends of sticks.