Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Gamble   /gˈæmbəl/   Listen
Gamble

noun
1.
Money that is risked for possible monetary gain.
2.
A risky act or venture.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Gamble" Quotes from Famous Books



... for the British farmer, who, deprived of his skilled men and faced with higher prices for fertilizers and feeding-stuffs, was expected to grow more food without having any certainty that he would be able to dispose of it at a remunerative price. Farming is always a bit of a gamble, but in present conditions it beats the Stock Exchange hollow. Some of the proposals which Mr. SCOTT outlined to improve the situation would have been denounced as revolutionary three years ago, and were a little too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various

... if you're going to hate me for it!" he said. "Reckon I can't afford that. I knew it was a gamble when I started. If I can't win, I'll back out ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... success turned the head of this lad who never before had had the handling of money. He began to gamble, and became the dupe of rogues—male and female—who plunged him into an abyss of wrong. He even gambled away the "Stradivarius" that had been presented to him, and when his money, watch and jewels were gone, his new-found friends of course decamped, and this gave ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... that money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table. And finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with me to this day, and has at last conquered me; and in conquering has saved the remnant of my morals: I shall gamble no more. Now I have no idea who that man was, but I want him found, and I want him to have this money, to give away, throw away, or keep, as he pleases. It is merely my way of testifying my gratitude to him. If ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain

... he wanted. He found it a hundred yards from his camp. It was a gnarled and wind-blown spruce six inches in diameter, standing in an open. In this open Philip knew that he could play havoc with the pack. On the other hand, if Bram possessed a rifle, the gamble was against him. Perched in the tree, silhouetted against the stars that made the night like day, he would be an easy victim. Bram could pick him off without showing himself. But it was his one chance, and ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... quitting the place there and then, I was fool enough to argue the position out solemnly to myself, with the result that I eventually decided the whole affair from beginning to end to be entirely of the nature of a gamble, and naturally felt bound to test whether the luck was going to hold ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... greedy lion. However, the prices rule so high nowadays, and the catches are occasionally so large (the other day a steam drifter brought in over 200 pounds worth of fish to Grimsby as the result of one night's fishing), that the great Martinmas fishing of the east coast has become a gamble in which fortunes may be made and lost. Many a boat earns over 2000 pounds from October to December. A lucky skipper may take 200 pounds for his share of the home fishing alone. But such figures would have sounded fantastic in FitzGerald's day, for I have been assured over and over again ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... for the outcome of Tom's bold gamble. Soon they saw the result. The pursuing planes suddenly peeled off and sped away in the direction from ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton

... pretty as a columbine. But I'd like her better if she was dressed decent." And a gaunt range rider, who stood with others at the porch door, looking on, asked a comrade: "Do you reckon that's style back East?" To which the other replied: "Mebbe, but I'd gamble they're short on silk back East ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... the late publications that treat of Irish interests in general, and none of them are of first-rate importance. Mr. Gamble's "Travels in Ireland" are of a very ordinary description, low scenes and low humour making up the principal part of the narrative. There are readers, however, whom it will amuse; and the reading market becomes more and more extensive, and embraces a ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... with all the young men among the kindred of the Chia mansion, the half of whom were extravagant in their habits, so that great was, of course, his delight to frequent them. To-day, they would come together to drink wine; the next day to look at flowers. They even assembled to gamble, to dissipate and to go everywhere and anywhere; leading, with all their enticements, Hseh P'an so far astray, that he became far worse, by a hundred times, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... formerly placed on the old pier, and was last used about the year 1795, when a Mrs. Gamble was ducked. The chair is preserved in the Museum of the Scarborough Philosophical Society. We are indebted to Dr. T. N. Brushfield for an ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews

... weep with him, rejoice with him, eat with him, drink with him, and—betray him; they do this every day, and do it well. They can also lie artistically, dressing up imaginary details with great skill, gamble and sing, swear, and talk scandal. They can lead a graceful, dissolute, far niente life, loll in carriages, and be whirled round for hours, say the Florence Cascine, the Roman Pincio, and the park at Milan—smoking ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... debt incurred I. O. U.'s, called "chits," which are sent in at the end of each month for payment; a vicious custom, which leads to deplorable excesses, especially in drinking and in gambling. Men drink and gamble more freely when immediate payment is not required, or when the chances of a lucky turn may recoup their losses; besides, many who have no means to pay incur debts. Indeed, so many cases of this kind have happened since "hard times set ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... we are harboring beneath our roof. For a' he look so grand and carries his head so high, he has little gold in his purse, but the black devil of greed is in his heart. So, like the lave of the gallants that drink and gamble and do waur things at the king's court, he has been hunting for some lass that will bring him a tocher (dowry) and a title. For this is what the men of his generation are ever needing. Ye follow me, Jean? This may be news to a country lass wha has ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... GAMBLE, second in command of the London Fire Brigade, is about to retire. There is some talk of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various

... non-commissioned officers. Who is there you cannot accuse of gambling? It is a fatal characteristic of these mongrels that they will copy the officers, and unfortunately only in what is stupid or bad. The fine gentlemen all play, drink, fool with women, gamble; it's only a question of the one a little more, the ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... same kindly eye, one glance of which we all loved so much to catch in after-life, beamed only the more warmly as the creatures frisked in greater confidence around him. It was to me an omen for good. He who could enjoy thus the innocent gamble of these guinea-pigs could not fail to be accessible for good when occasion required. It was the first flush of that largeness of heart which afterwards appeared in all I ever heard him say ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... because we have compared prospecting in mining and in selling, that the success of the salesman prospector, your success, must be largely a "gamble" anyway, as is the case with the explorer for gold. However experienced and skillful in prospecting the miner may be, he is very uncertain of discovering a bonanza. He cannot be absolutely sure there is gold in the region he explores, in paying ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... to do what I declared three years ago I never would do, and that I have refused to do ever since—loan a man money with which to gamble or pay gambling debts. I need this money, Willett, to send home. I've been saving and sending home ever since I joined, but that's not why I ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... man who keeps a licensed gambling-house to abandon a pursuit that is ruining his country. "But I am not violating the laws," he replies, "nor compelling any man to gamble and drink to excess in my house. The whole responsibility, therefore, rests upon those who do it. Expostulate with them. I have a right ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... "I'll gamble with you—for one more stake: If Ellerbee's device is on the level, you'll make a grant to Clearwater and other institutions of like qualifications, and ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... should ever reach the Bat. He lost the contents of his lodge at the game of the plum-stones—all the robes that Seet-se-be-a had fleshed and softened, but more often his squaw had to bring a pack-pony down to the gamble and pile it high with his winnings. He was much looked up to in the warrior class of the Red Lodges, which contained the tried-out braves of the Cheyenne tribe; moreover old men—wise ones—men who stood for all there was in the Chis-chis-chash, talked to him occasionally ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... Laura," said Cressler, gravely. "I hope some day," he continued, "we can all of us get hold of this man and make him solemnly promise never to gamble in ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... quite. If you borrow a shilling of any one to gamble with, and lose the stake and pay him with the shilling you have borrowed from him, he does not exactly get what is due to him. However, Edwards made no reply; no doubt ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough

... a little while, another woman, whom he had known—a Mrs. Josephine Ledwell, a smart widow, who came primarily to gamble on the Board of Trade, but who began to see at once, on introduction, the charm of a flirtation with Cowperwood. She was a woman not unlike Aileen in type, a little older, not so good-looking, and of a harder, more subtle commercial type of mind. She ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... he was going to the tables to gamble away all his savings and then shoot himself, because he had nothing ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... jump of the road. I'd follow his dust any day of the week. You don't never need to think he's any shorthorn cattleman, for he ain't. He's the livest proposition that ever come out of Graham County. You can ce'tainly gamble on that." ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... study our failures. Gambling and drink, for example, produce much misery. But what reformers have to learn is that men don't gamble just for the sake of violating the law. They do so because something within them is satisfied by betting or drinking. To erect a ban doesn't stop the want. It merely prevents its satisfaction. And since this desire ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... in front of the drivers. This moment is mine and yours because he gave his right hand for it—shall I desert him now he needs me? And so a hundred times and in a hundred ways we gamble with death and laugh if we cheat it: and our poor reward is only sometimes to win where far better men have failed. So in this railroad life two men stand, as he and I have stood, luck or ill-luck, storm or ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... Epping Forest must be one of Nature's favourite haunts, from the numbers of people who come here to worship her, especially on Bank Holidays. Those are her high festivals, when her adorers troop down, and build booths and whirligigs and circuses in her honour, and gamble, and ride donkeys, and shy sticks at cocoanuts before her. Also they partake of sandwiches and many other appropriate offerings at the shrine, and pour libations of bottled ale, and nectar, and zoedone, and brandy, and soda-water, ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang

... the previous one, and another kind of Marriage. Society is complexly organized, minutely interrelated; great power here and great weakness there, vast accumulations of surplus energies, hoarded goods, many possessions,—oh, a long gamut up and down the human scale! And the CHANCE, the great gamble, always dangles before Man's eyes; not the hope of a hard-won existence for woman and children, not a few acres of cleared wilderness, but a dream of the Aladdin lamp of human desires,—excitements, emotions, ecstasies,—all the world of the mind and the body. So Woman, no ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... the cosmic ray absorbers and trained them downward. A thin stream of accidental neutrons directed against the bottom of the bubble may disrupt its energies—wear it thin. It's a long gamble, but worth taking. We're staking ...
— The Sky Trap • Frank Belknap Long

... epochs pass. Yet in all their fashions, even the crudest, they deserve much tenderness. He consults a clergyman (1829) on the practice of prayer meetings in his rooms. His correspondent answers, that as the wicked have their orgies and meet to gamble and to drink, so they that fear the Lord should speak often to one another concerning Him; that prayer meetings are not for the cultivation or exhibition of gifts, nor to enable noisy and forward young men to pose as leaders of a school of prophets; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... his master's conduct, and said that he "could not recommend him," as he would "drink and gamble," both of which, were enough to condemn him, in Edward's estimation, even though he were passable in other respects. But he held him doubly guilty for the way that he acted in ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... a few years of frantic love and some sort of happiness, I expect, and then funds began to give out, and Bobbie's insane desire to gamble led him into the shadiest society, at Baden-Baden and Nice, and other warm spots. Poor Hilda used to go about with him then in a shamed, defiant way, running from any old friend, or staring over his head. I happened ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... God, and lavish them away at watering-places or elsewhere, seeking pleasure instead of doing God service. It is not considered disreputable to take fee after fee to uphold injustice, to plead against innocence, to pervert truth, and to aid the devil. It is not considered disreputable to gamble on the Stock Exchange, or to corrupt the honesty of electors by bribes, for doing which the penalty attached is equal to that decreed to the offence of which I am guilty. All these, and much more, are not considered disreputable; yet by all these are the moral bonds of society loosened, while ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... purser, who was a good fellow in his blundering way. "Chaps gamble, you know. And this part of the world is full of fleas and mosquitoes and gamblers. When a man's been chucked, he's always asking what's trumps. He's not keen on the game; and the professional gambler takes advantage of his condition. Oh, there are a thousand ways out here of getting rid of your ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath

... as some among the sailors were hinting at a mutiny for spirits, and our last case of Gamble's meat was opened for the sick, our look-out on the jury-mast gave the welcome note of 'Land!' and soon, to us on deck, the heights of St. Helena rose above the sea. Towed in by friendly aid, here we are, then, precious Emily, refitting: and, as it must be a week yet before we can be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... easier time than before, but he hadn't money to gamble with unless he deprived himself of his customary supply of food, and this he ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... refused to pay up what he owed; he pocketed as long as he won, but as soon as he lost he did not pay." At the request of Saccard, the Marquis became a director of the Universal Bank. When the great gamble in the shares of the bank began, the Marquis followed his usual plan; having played through Mazaud for a rise, he refused to pay his losses, though he had gained two million francs through Jacoby, through whom he had ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... when adult, and sexual license before wedlock is tolerated. A Brahman is employed only for fixing the date of the ceremony. The principal part of the marriage is the knotting together of the bride's and bridegroom's clothes on two successive days. They also gamble with tamarind seeds, and it is considered a lucky union if the bridegroom wins. A bride-price is usually paid consisting of Rs. 1-4 to Rs. 5 in cash, some grain and a piece of cloth for the bride's mother. The remarriage of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... corps, and was obliged to fall back to the mountains again. Later in the day he succeeded, by going around by way of Emmetsburg. Before evening set in, he had thrown out his pickets almost to Cashtown and Hunterstown, posting Gamble's brigade across the Chambersburg pike, and Devin's brigade across the Mummasburg road, his main body being about a mile ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday

... as it does—that is, not paying. We shall be having to gamble in the City systematically ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... "that was only part. It did not seem right that Gregory should go against Wyllard's wishes, and gamble the Range away on the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... But it was money which he held in trust. He must replace it. The angel in the pitch robes stood at his side; she even laid a hand on his shoulder and urged him to win back what he had lost. Then indeed he could laugh, go his way, and gamble no more. This was excellent advice. That winter he lost something like fifteen thousand. Then began the progress of decline. The following summer his losses were even greater than before. He began to mortgage the estates, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... Dick with five shillings in his pocket, Digby with L1000,—and if, at the end of ten years, you looked up your two men, Dick would be on his road to a fortune, Digby—what we have seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink nor gamble. What was he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son,—a spoiled child, brought up as "a gentleman;" that is, as a man who was not expected to be able to turn his hand to anything. He entered, as we have seen, a very expensive regiment, wherein he found himself, at his father's ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... comparison the concrete aspect of which is turned against him. You may remember the dialogue between a mother and her son in the Faux Bonshommes: "My dear boy, gambling on 'Change is very risky. You win one day and lose the next."—"Well, then, I will gamble only every other day." In the same play too we find the following edifying conversation between two company-promoters: "Is this a very honourable thing we are doing? These unfortunate shareholders, you see, we are taking the money out of their very pockets...."—"Well, out of what ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... of London, said magnificently, "We bear the same arms, Sir Charles, but of course ours is the colonial branch of the family!" and she nodded admiringly at Dolly Ripley's boyish and blunt fashion of saying occasionally "We Ripleys,—oh, we drink and gamble and do other things, I admit; we're not saints! But ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... between the trenches. Some of them were the bodies of very young men—poor boys of sixteen and seventeen from German high schools and universities who were the sons of noble and well-to- do families, had been accepted as volunteers by Prussian war-lords ruthless of human life in their desperate gamble with fate. Some of these lads were brought to the hospitals in Furnes, badly wounded. One of them carried into the convent courtyard smiled as he lay on his stretcher and spoke imperfect French very politely to Englishwomen who bent over ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... slight stake. To participate in this Thomas refused, on the plea that he did not know enough of the games to risk anything. He had not the moral courage to declare that he considered it wrong to gamble. ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various

... gal as attractive, vivacious, and clever as you are, would have to marry—in self-defense, if for no other reason. Marriage need not interfere. It might help. With that hazard and gamble out of the way, it would allow you to expand your talents in planning, executing, and managing in any ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... fourteen or fifteen most of them have found work in factory or store, but evenings and Sundays they, too, are looking for diversion. The girls find it attractive to walk the streets, while the boys frequent the cheap pool-room, where they find a chance to gamble and listen to the tales of the idlers who find employment as cheap thieves and hangers-on of immoral houses. From these headquarters they sally forth upon the streets to find association with the other sex, and together ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... in those good old days under Louis Napoleon plenty of places to gamble and spend the inherited gold. Ah! it was Rabelaisian enough! What an age to have been the recipient of a million at twenty-one! It was like being a king with no responsibilities. No wonder de Savignac left the university—he had no longer any need of it. He dined now at the ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith

... to Heaven she isn't bad, no matter what her brother has been," McVane had said. "I'll gamble my life ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... diners, the gentle splashing of the water from the fountains in the winter garden, the distant murmuring of music from behind the canopy of palms. So this was the end of it! All that week he had hoped against hope. He had been told of a sure thing. Next week he had meant to have a great gamble. Everything was to have gone his way, after all. And now it was too late. Fischer knew, and Fischer was a ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... "We're a-comin', miss, you gamble on that and the lightnin's a fool to us!" shouted Dollops in reply. "Let her have it, guv'ner! Bust the bloomin' tank. Give her her head; give her her feet; give her her blessed merry-thought if she wants it! Hurrah! ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... was the deuce of a place To drink and to fight, and to gamble and race; The height of choice spirits from near and from far Were all concentrated ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson

... impossible but that a more correct understanding of the laws of life and heredity may establish the fact that because of the subjection of woman, the entire race has been mentally dwarfed and physically weakened." —Gamble. ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... is true. My father used to gamble. All the young men of the country used to gather at my father's house-and they ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)

... the river In the shadow of the wood, With wide-open doors for welcome Gamble-roofed the cottage stood; Where the festal board was waiting, For the bridal guests prepared, Laden with a feast, the humblest In the little ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... added. "I'd bet a horse on that." He recalled how white and soft were Honey's hands, and he swore a little. "Wouldn't hurt her to get out there in the kitchen and help with the cooking," he criticised. Then suddenly he laughed. "Shucks a'mighty, as Pop says! with those two girls on the ranch I'll gamble Dave Truman has a full crew of men that are plumb willing to work for ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower

... up altogether. I used to gamble, but I never do that now, and never shall again. What I mean is this,—that I hold myself in readiness to risk everything at any moment, in order to gain any object that may serve my turn. I am always ready to lead a forlorn hope. That's what I mean by tossing ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... yanking him out of Holland and putting him on trial," answered Frank; "but it's a gamble if they really will. He's such a skulking cowardly figure just now that perhaps it wouldn't be well to try him. It might dignify him too much, make a martyr of him. They may let him and the Crown Prince stay where they are. There's ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... a little." He didn't want to talk because he had read that confidence men always engaged their victims in conversation before selling them counterfeit money or leading them to gamble away their savings. Tom's eyes darted anxiously about in search of Steve and he wondered how soon the smooth-voiced stranger would call him by name or ask after the folks in Tannersville. ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour

... for ever fighting your battles. Why don't you help me? If Ebenezer Brown knows that you gamble, he will shoot you out," ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... wrong end, but it doesn't matter. Frank Woods has used the money entrusted him by the French Government to gamble with. He counted on the contracts with the International Biplane people to bring him clean and leave him a comfortable fortune besides. The end of the war and the wholesale cancellation of government contracts killed that. To cover his deficits, he borrowed from the Capitol ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny

... can only regret that this—denouement did not come some months ago. You are likely to suffer more than I, because I do not care what the world thinks of me. Therefore you may tell the world what you choose about me—that I drink, that I gamble, that I am lacking in—honour! Anything that suggests itself to you, in fact. You need not go away; I will ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... injustice done, such reparation as is possible shall be made.' Then they came and closed the door and I lit out for here. You've got a fine champion, Kendall Major, and we'll all see you through if it comes to a public demonstration, you can gamble on that!" ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... especially in the latter Middle, Ages it was otherwise. The great religious houses not only tended to accumulate wealth and to perpetuate it in the same hands (they could not gamble it away nor disperse it in luxury; they could hardly waste it by mismanagement), but they were also permanently ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc

... over, till the next drawing, those persons think no more of their effects, provided they are within two or three of the winning numbers; and thus they gamble away almost every thing belonging to them, even to the very clothes on their back. This is so true that it is not, I understand, at all uncommon in Paris, for a Cyprian nymph to send her last robe to the nearest pawnbroker's, in order ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... never really gamble!" The fluttering little hands deprecated the very idea. "We have just a tiny stake—to —why, only to make us play a better game. It does, ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells

... his head to go Away for a time—to London,— And I, who knew him so well, Could see as he came home worried. Aye, sir! I could read—could tell As things had gone wrong with Master. I was right: 'twas that tale so old! He'd lost in that great big gamble, In ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... living for others; of having horses merely to exhibit them; of doing all things for the sake of what may be said of them; of wasting my substance to keep fools from crying out: 'Dear, dear! Paul is still driving the same carriage. What has he done with his fortune? Does he squander it? Does he gamble at the Bourse? No, he's a millionaire. Madame such a one is mad about him. He sent to England for a harness which is certainly the handsomest in all Paris. The four-horse equipages of Messieurs de Marsay and de Manerville ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... 'you've allowed gamblin' in this bar—your boss has. You've got no right to let spielers gamble away a man's dog. Is a customer to lose his dog every time he has a doze to suit your boss? I'll go straight across to the police camp and put you away, and I don't care if you lose your licence. I ain't goin' to lose my dog. I wouldn'ter taken a ten-pound ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... goes on to say, 'that it leads them in their desire to rise in the social scale to attempt by dishonest means to live at a higher rate than is justifiable, to gamble and speculate, in order to keep up a false position. I have come across those who have fallen where this has confessedly been the case, and who have lamented that such wrong ideas had been put into their heads. Young people now look upon many honourable and ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... generally indulged in cards for amusement alone. Ladies had no hesitation in gambling, and many of them followed it passionately. 'Chaque pays a sa habitude,' remarked a lady one evening when I answered her query about card playing in America. It was the Russian fashion to gamble, and no one dreamed of making the slightest concealment of it. Though I saw it repeatedly I could never rid myself of a desire to turn away when a lady was reckoning her gains and losses, and keeping her accounts on the table cover. Russian card tables are covered with green cloth and provided ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... from vices. It must be so, for vices weaken the will and dull the brain. I take a little wine at my meals, but never to excess, and I never was drunk in my life. I smoke three or four cigars a day and occasionally a cigarette, that is all. And I never gamble. No doubt there are vicious criminals, but they would probably have been vicious if they had not ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... pure gamble. They played swiftly, and in silence. West seemed to take but slight interest in the issue, but he won steadily and surely. Young Bathurst, playing feverishly, lost and lost, and lost again. The fortunes of the other four players ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... disburthening of self-accusation as before to Felix. It seemed as if the terrible effects of his wilfulness at the inn—horrified as he was at them— were less oppressive to his conscience than his treachery to his host in his endeavour to gamble with the little boys. He had found a pair of dice in his purse when looking for the price of a Bible, and the sight had awakened the vehement hereditary Mexican passion for betting, the bane of his mother's race. His father, as a ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... other methods counted respectable. Among the youth of Nevada City with whom he had associated, it was commonly believed that every successful man in town had done something crooked at some time in his career—that life was nothing but a gamble anyhow, and that a little cheating might ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... or when their constitution is so broken that their recovery is despaired of, they are exported to New Orleans, to drag out the remainder of their days in the cane-field and sugar house. I would not insinuate that all planters gamble upon their crops; but I mention the practice as one of the common inducements to 'push niggers.' Neither would I assert that all planters drive the hands to the injury of their health. I give it as a general ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... Pleasant-Faced Lion, "the children are retreating. Carry-on-Merry, Gamble, Grin, and Grub, I believe you are the champion snowballers of the world. I think myself you must have acquired the gift from some unusually impish urchins whose methods you have closely observed round Westminster way. I consider your skill quite in accordance ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... may be divided into two classes: occasional gamblers and professional gamblers. Among the first may be placed those attracted by curiosity, and those strangers I have alluded to who are brought in by salaried intermediaries. The second is composed of men who gamble to retrieve their losses, or those who try to deceive and lull their grief through the exciting ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... impatiently. The fire in her eyes had dried the tears. "He could straighten up if he wanted to. He likes to drink and gamble, so he does it, and you keep him in countenance by your friendship. Are you hesitating ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan

... a four in this house," said Lovell. "We three and the Caterpillar. He plays, I know. The Colonel is one of the cracks at the Turf. It would be an awful lark. A mild gamble: small points—eh? A bob a hundred. What ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... for the monopoly of the gaming tables, and pledge themselves to spend one hundred thousand dollars annually upon the walks and buildings. Of course players must lose vast sums of money to enable the keepers of the establishment to pay these large prices. All classes of people gamble, and about one fourth of those who engage in the seductive play are ladies—or rather women, though they include not ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... in at the door to say gude-night: it was a sad sight. There was she sitting with the silent tear on her cheek, and Charlie greeting as if he had done a great fault, and the other four looking on with sorrowful faces. Never, I am sure, did Charlie Malcolm gamble after that night. ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... later, and again there were days when he went off in his boat in the morning and did not return until the last stragglers on the terrace of the hotel were ready to go to bed. He was irregular even in playing, which was after all his chief pastime. Possibly he knew of reasons why it should be good to gamble on one day and not upon another. Then he had his fits of amateur seamanship, when he would insist upon taking the tiller from Ruggiero's hand. The latter, on such occasions, remained perched upon the stern in case of an emergency. San Miniato was a ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford

... harsh to my children, but I strive on my knees for their good. And when I have made up my mind that a thing is right to do, you know that my nature is of iron. No child of mine shall marry a lazy vagabond who can do nothing but lie in a hammock and bet and gamble and make love. And a half-breed! Mother of God! Now go to San Francisco, and send for more money when ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... that. There isn't a man on the force in whom I have greater confidence than you. But, if I was to gamble, I'd wager ten to one that you'd lose out if I sent you up to take this ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... be a safe gamble that he will be out at Stanwick in the morning looking over those places he has neglected heretofore," laughed Ashton-Kirk, as the driver slammed the door shut after them and started toward ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre

... man smiled. "It proves my theory is possible. Knowing Olson, I'm willin' to gamble he didn't sit still on the fire escape an' let that drawn blind shut him off from what was goin' on inside. He was one mighty interested observer. Now he must 'a' known there was a clothes-line on the roof. From the street you can see a washin' hangin' out there any old time. In his place I'd ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... diamond was a valuable one—a little Jew chap, a diamond merchant, who was with us, had put it at three or four thousand when Padishah had shown it to him—and this idea of an ostrich gamble caught on. Now it happened that I'd been having a few talks on general subjects with the man who looked after these ostriches, and quite incidentally he'd said one of the birds was ailing, and he fancied it had indigestion. It had one feather in its tail almost all ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... an advanced design," said Redell, "and I just don't believe it possible—would we gamble on a remote-control system? No such system is perfect. Suppose it went wrong. At that speed, over fifteen thousand miles an hour, your precious missile or strato ship could be halfway around the globe in about forty-five minutes. That is, if the fuel ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... practise it? It looks as if you did not so much love the gospel as you hate us. And what do you hate us for? It is not because we are so different from you, but because we are so like. You say we are a licentious lot; well, so are you. We drink hard; so do you. We gamble and we swear; but what do you do, I should like to know? Why should you be so hard on us? We don't interfere with your little enjoyments: for pity's sake, don't meddle with ours. You talk about driving us out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... excitedly, "there's a feller pushin' his plug as tho' them Injuns was on his heels. Say, it's Seth o' White River Farm, and by the gait he's travelin', I'd gamble, Nevil, you don't cut that wood to-morrow. Seth ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum

... Southern leader, Stonewall Jackson, in his piety. It was not ostentatious, but simply part and parcel of the man, due to his Presbyterian training. Haig did not swear or gamble or dance all night. He was more apt to be found in his tent, when off duty, either ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... blind herself to the fact that in order to gamble, most of the girls in the room would go, without the smallest discrimination, to anybody's house; but there were others,—notably Mrs. Alan Hosack, Mrs. Cooper Jekyll and Enid Ouchterlony,—whose pride it was to draw a hard, relentless line between themselves and ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... nudged new-comers and pointed him out, with "Sempre fiori, quello." The young man with the embroidery was sorry about him; he had an expression as if he were losing more halfpence than he could well afford. The young man himself lost all the stakes he made; but he didn't gamble much, knowing himself not lucky. Instead, he watched the fluctuating fortunes of a vivacious and beautiful youth near him, who flung on his stakes with a lavish gesture of dare-devil extravagance, that implied that he was putting his fortune to the touch to win or lose it ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... the Weather.—The weather takes its place in the accident division of news stories because of its frequent harmful effects on life and property. Men's pursuits are all a gamble on the weather. Usually a story about the weather depends for its value largely on the felicity of its language, though when there has been severe atmospheric disturbance, resulting in loss of life, destruction ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... we could pass our baggage over the river, but promised to send a man early in the morning for one which they said would meet us at the river by noon the next day. The indians formed themselves this evening into two large parties and began to gamble for their beads and other ornaments. the game at which they played was that of hiding a stick in their hands which they frequently changed acompanying their opperations with a song. this game seems common to all the nations in this country, and dose ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... resenting the disapproval in her tone. "They do gamble in there, I know, and sometimes have a pretty tough row, but Stumpy is as kind-hearted a man as there is in ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... wrestle with fate for freedom and a home of their own. When their weary years of servitude were over, if they survived, they might obtain land of their own or settle as free mechanics in the towns. For many a bondman the gamble proved to be a losing venture because he found himself unable to rise out of the state of poverty and dependence into which his servitude carried him. For thousands, on the contrary, bondage proved to be a real avenue to freedom and prosperity. Some of the best citizens of America ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... post at Ringgold. He was one of the most thorough gentlemen I ever knew, as courteous to the humblest soldier as to General Bragg, who was then and during the summer a frequent visitor. His wife lay for some months very ill at some point near Ringgold. Mrs. Gamble, who, with her lovely children, was domiciled at Cherokee Springs, three miles distant, was also a delightful addition to our little circle. She was thoroughly accomplished, of charming manners, although perfectly frank and outspoken. Her musical talent was exceptional, and ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... characteristic feature of the arrangement.* [footnote... At a meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, May 23, 1883, when various papers were read on Waterworks, Mr. H. I. Marten observed in the course of the discussion: —"It has been stated in Mr. Gamble's paper (on the waterworks of Port Elizabeth) that the sluice valves are of the usual pattern. The usual patterns of the present day are in wonderful advance of those of thirty or forty years since. The great improvement originated with the introduction of 'the double-faced sluice-cock.' ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... employed lace-makers at Honiton; or makers of something else, as useless, elsewhere. We must spend our money in some way, at some time, and it cannot at any time be spent without employing somebody. If we gamble it away, the person who wins it must spend it; if we lose it in a railroad speculation, it has gone into some one else's pockets, or merely gone to pay navies for making a useless embankment, instead of to pay riband or button makers for ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... said the padron. "We brawl and gamble and seduce women, and we sing and we dance, and then we repent and the priest fixes it up with God. In America ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... much; to a man of any age, in my opinion, life without money isn't worth much; it becomes worth still less when he is held to account for money he ought to have. So I cheerfully entered upon my biggest gamble, holding the stake of life well risked. My pleasure in the affair was only marred by the enforced partnership of McGregor. There was no help for this, but I knew he wasn't much fonder of me than I of him, and I found myself gently meditating on the friction likely to arise between the new President ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... might later make us run into a mud-bank," he answered merrily. "Whenever any one is executed in Venice, it has to be done between those two columns, and that has made the spot most unlucky. People used to gamble there before it was the place for executions, but now, of course, no one thinks ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... in some other unprofitable place, these thirty men remained, and daily prosecuted their nearly hopeless search for fortune. Their evenings were spent in the saloon, but there was a conspicuous absence of anything like jollity. The men were too poor to gamble with any zest, and the whiskey of the saloon keeper was bad ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... are no clubs nor marts where men foregather for business in the North—nothing but the saloon, and this is all and more than a club. Here men congregate to drink, to gamble, and to traffic. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... Morning Post and the Spectator pressed for further enquiry. The October number of the National Review contained a searching criticism of the whole business and called special attention to the Stock Exchange gamble in American Marconis. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... playing at tennis in the tennis court like a boy, and then weighing himself afterward to see how much he was gaining. In the afternoons and evenings he would loiter in the rooms of his favorites while they were finishing their dressing, gamble at cards, and often would get very much intoxicated at wild midnight carousals. He would ramble in the mall and in the parks, and feed the aquatic birds upon the ponds there, day after day, with all the interest and pleasure ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... him with one on. Hector Hall he's always got a couple of 'em on him, and Matt mostly has one in sight. You can gamble on it he's got an automatic in his pocket when he don't strap it on ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... Britain and France. "The President's judgment," wrote Colonel House on August 4, 1915, three months after the Lusitania went down, "was that last autumn was the time to discuss peace parleys, and we both saw present possibilities. War is a great gamble at best, and there was too much at stake in this one to take chances. I believe if one could have started peace parleys in November, we could have forced the evacuation of both France and Belgium, and finally forced a peace which would have eliminated militarism on land and sea. The ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... you won L250 upon a gamble at my place and what you did with it, which sum probably represented to you twenty or fifty times what it would to me? Also if that argument does not appeal to you, may I remark that I do not expect you to give me your services as ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... to the Marquesas Islands, where he entered into the service of his country in the capacity of Midshipman under Commodore Porter—made his escape from there in company with Lieutenant Gamble of the Marine corps, by directions of the Commodore, was captured by the British, landed at Buenos Ayres, and finally ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere

... for boys to play marbles, but sinful to play dominoes. Wherein, pray? They can learn to gamble with one as well as with the other. It is sinful to play billiards, but highly graceful and innocent to play croquet. But why? Really, when it comes to a comparison, the first is infinitely the more beautiful and intellectual game. The ethical distinctions are positively bewildering between ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... right. "Kane mentions that the Shastas ... frequently sell their children as slaves to the Chinooks."[130] Bancroft says of the Columbians: "Affection for children is by no means rare, but in few tribes can they resist the temptation to sell or gamble them away."[131] Descent through mothers is in force among the negroes of equatorial Africa, the man's property passing to his sister's children; but the father is an unlimited despot, and no one dares to oppose him. So long as his relation with his wives continues, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... middle classes as a whole, and it may be said that open immorality and gross intemperance have vanished. Four and six bottle men are as extinct as the dodo. Women of good repute do not gamble, and talk modelled upon Dean Swift's "Art of Polite Conversation" would be ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... beginning of November, which is also the time when the autumn crops ripen. All classes observe this feast by illuminating their houses with many small saucer-lamps and letting off crackers and fireworks, and they generally gamble with money to bring them good luck during the coming year. The Ahirs make a mound of earth, which is called Govardhan, that is the mountain in Mathura which Krishna held upside down on his finger for seven days and nights, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... all smile at the idea that an Illinois, Indiana or Kentucky pecan would be caught with the frost, which never affects them. But the rains always affect them. If the month of May is a beautiful, dry, clear month, you can gamble on the pecan crop. Now, this year we won't have much of a crop. The Warwick will have a gallon or two, and the Kentucky crop is a failure. The Green River and Major we didn't get to, but I suspect that very few of our own trees will ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various

... and cherishes the heart of a frog. True, he repeatedly insists on the obligation of truthfulness in all things, and of, honor in dealing with the world. His Gentleman may; nay, he must, sail with the stream, gamble in moderation if it is the fashion, must stoop to wear ridiculous clothes and ornaments if they are the mode, though despising his weakness all to himself, and no true Gentleman could afford to keep out of the little gallantries ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... nothing. I am not a little girl. There is a bargain which I offer, and the only one I shall offer. It is a gamble. I have gambled all my life. If you will not accord me so remote a chance as this, why, then, I shall take it ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... she called him. She had a good-looking, confidential maid who had lived with her for years. In one of her fits she told this maid that she would give half of what she possessed if her nephew were like other young men. 'I don't want him to be a sot or to gamble away my money,' she cried, 'but there's not much else I should mind if ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... Mr. Gamble, a traveler in Ireland, in his work on Irish "Society and Manners," gives the following statement of an old friend of his, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... felt strongly inclined to cry, but she kept back the sobs and said, "You know, John, how sullen and almost hateful you were before, when you were bewitched after those mean stocks. I don't think you should meddle with such things; they are too big for you. Let the rich fools gamble, if they want to; if they lose, they can afford it, and nobody cares but to laugh at them. Oh, John, you promised me ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... Men wishing to gamble will find places just suited to their capacity, not only in the underground oyster-cellar, or at the table back of the curtain, covered with greasy cards, or in the steamboat smoking cabin, where the bloated ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... place seemed promising at this hour, there was nothing to do but pass the moments until time to change for dinner. Accordingly I watched the tables. Once, like most men of my age, I had been bitten by the roulette fever and had wrestled with "systems" in their thousands, not so much for the mere "gamble," as for the joy of striving to beat the wily ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... miles of flight. After that, the speed of the ship remains constant. You follow me?" Tardeau, the half-mad French genius had explained it so logically. And Joshua had believed in him. That's where you made your big gamble in a project of this kind. You selected your men and then believed in them. Others dissented, of course. There are always dissenters. And always points that could not be proven or disproven on the drawing boards or in ...
— The Big Tomorrow • Paul Lohrman

... No, I do not like to lose my temper. I become very rough—yes, very rough indeed, my friends all tell me so; but I like fun—yes, I am a thoroughbred, I am, clean through. I gamble, I do—yes, I am a regular sport, and I am so glad I did not hurt any of ...
— Oscar the Detective - Or, Dudie Dunne, The Exquisite Detective • Harlan Page Halsey

... especially in philosophy and religion. He displeased the Conservatives by his Liberalism, the coarser Radicals by his pietism and culture. He displeased the fast set by his strict morality; they called him slow, because he did not bet, gamble, use bad language, keep an opera dancer. With more reason he displeased the army by meddling, under the name of a too courtly Commander-in-Chief, with professional matters which he could not understand. ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith



Words linked to "Gamble" :   speculation, dice, stakes, play, gambling, raise, seek, stake, assay, go for broke, long shot, try, wager, essay, danger, bet, venture, peril, luck through, take chances, attempt, shoot craps, luck it



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com