bumble puppy
bumble puppy noun: a game in which players attempt to project metal balls into nine holes in a flat wooden board; nineholes.
Noun
bumble puppy (uncountable)
- A game in which players attempt to project metal balls into nine holes in a flat wooden board; nineholes.
- Any of various childish or informal games.
- Cecil was absent—one did not play bumble-puppy when he was there.1908, EM Forster, A Room With A View, Penguin, published 2018, page 104
- A simplified form of whist; whist or bridge played unskilfully.
- Templeton isn't the sort of chap to play bumble-puppy bridge with a girl like that unless he's getting something out of it.1947, W. Somerset Maugham, Creatures of Circumstance
- Swingball or tetherball.
Forms of bumble puppy
| alternative form | bumble-puppy |
|---|---|
| alternative form | bumblepuppy |
Origin of bumble puppy
Of unknown origin.
Words formed from bumble puppy
Questions about bumble puppy
- What does bumble puppy mean?
- Bumble puppy means a game in which players attempt to project metal balls into nine holes in a flat wooden board; nineholes.
- What part of speech is bumble puppy?
- Bumble puppy is a noun.
Words near bumble puppy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bumble puppy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “bumble puppy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bumble_puppy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.