Marble Words
Kids often adopt and share specialized vocabularies for playing games. There is a complex and enormous set of jargon that have used by kids for playing marbles. The vocabulary of marble playing is different in different regions and times. Marble playing used to be common for school aged children. To become an expert requires rigorous practice, hours of patience, and dirty knees. Kids who play marbles learn and share many of these special words. You will find those words in use throughout this web site.
("The Vocabulary of Marble Playing" The American Dialext Society, 1955.)
- aggie (bull's-eye)
- an aggate marble that looks like a bulle's eye. White marlbe with circular rings
- aggie (cat's eye)
- an agate marble that looks like a cat's eye
- alley
- the area marked out to play marlbes
- alley taw
- the offensive marble set aside for shooting
- ante
- the wager in a marble game of chance
- baby up
- to slily approach the marle ring in order to get the best angle
- back to taw
- when a player needs to return to where he shot last
- bombing or bombies
- dropping your marble onto another marble.
- boss
- a large playing marble
- bull ring
- a large round ring for playing marbles
- burns
- a call by a player which allows him to roll his marble again after his shooter has hit some object that deflected it from the desired direction
- china alley
- a marble made from china ware with rings painted in different colors
- chuck
- a shooter that remains in the ring after being rolled towards marles in the ring
- clears, clearies
- a call that gives permission to clear obstacles from the ground before the defensive marble
- clip
- the act of hitting a marble
- commie
- a cheap, common marble
- dob
- a large marble
- downsies
- a call demanding that the shooter keep his knuckles on the ground when shooting
- dubs
- when two or more marbles are knocked out of the ring with one shot.
- drop
- an expert marble player
- dubbed up
- a player has dubbed up when he claims that he has lost all his marbles while he still has some marbles in his possession
- dubs
- a call that gives the player right to take all marbles, or no dubs to revoke the right
- earnest
- a game in which players keepthe marbles they knock from the ring
- edger
- a marble or taw that is near the edge of the ring or shooting line
- for fair, or fairsies
- rules of playing in which each player gets back his or her marbles at the end of the game.
- fudging
- moving your hand foward while shooting.
- fumble
- to allow the marlbe to slip from the hand when shooting
- hand span
- the width of your hand
- jumpsies
- shooting your marble in such a way that it jumps into the air and hits the target marbleon landing without hitting the ground first.
- keepsies
- rules that any marbles that a player looses are not returned at the end of the game, but kept by whoever won them.
- lacky
- last in order of shooting
- lagging
- in marbles you don't flip a coin to see who goes first. you shoot or bowl a marble from the pitch line to another parallel line called the lag line.
- lag line
- the line you throw toward when lagging.
- mibs
- target marbles, the ones you shoot at.
- mibster
- a marble player.
- pee wee
- a small marble, not always round
- pitch line
- the line you stand behind to lag.
- pot
- collection of marbles that every player adds to for playing a game.
- poon
- toshoot at a marble from a long distance
- shooter
- the marble you shoot with. it may be slightly larger than a regular marble. some players have favorite or lucky shooters.
- shooting line
- the line behind which you stand and shoot in a game.
- slip
- when a marble slips out of a player's hand accidentally.
- snooger
- term used in ringer to describe a terget marble that is near the rim of the ring
- shoot
- to roll pitch, or move a marble in the direction of a target
- shooter or taw
- the offensive marble
- smug
- to grab all the marbles and run when some action might break up the game
- target marble
- the marble you want to hit
- taw
- marble you are shooting with, the shooter.
- taw line
- line behind which you shoot.