Word.ws English Dictionary

tummler

UK/ˈtʊmlə(ɹ)/

tummler noun: an employee, usually male, of a Borscht Belt resort charged with the duty of entertaining guests throughout the day by providing any number of services, from comedian to master of ceremonies.

Noun

tummler (plural tummlers)

  1. (US) An employee, usually male, of a Borscht Belt resort charged with the duty of entertaining guests throughout the day by providing any number of services, from comedian to master of ceremonies.
    • Brooks began as a Tummler (master entertainer) at various Catskills resorts, where he honed his skills at telling jokes and doing impersonations.2015, Henry Jenkins, “Mel Brooks, Vulgar Modernism, and Comic Remediation”, in Andrew Horton, Joanna E. Rapf, editors, A Companion to Film Comedy, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 151
  2. A lively, mischievous man.
  3. (broadly) A person with an official role which involves facilitating social interaction.
    • But most of all, we can’t forget why we needed moderators in the first place: They’re our tummlers, helping us have a good time.2020 March, Annalee Newitz, “We Forgot About the Most Important Job on the Internet”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.

Forms of tummler

pluraltummlers

Origin of tummler

Circa 1930, from Yiddish טומלער (tumler). Related to English tumble, and ultimately from Proto-Germanic *tūmōną (“to turn, rotate”).

Questions about tummler

What does tummler mean?
Tummler means an employee, usually male, of a Borscht Belt resort charged with the duty of entertaining guests throughout the day by providing any number of services, from comedian to master of ceremonies.
What part of speech is tummler?
Tummler is a noun.
How do you pronounce tummler?
Tummler is pronounced /ˈtʊmlə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of tummler?
The plural of tummler is tummlers.

Words near tummler in the dictionary

  1. tummies
  2. Tumminello
  3. Tumminellos
  4. tummit
  5. tummits
  6. tummler
  7. tummlers
  8. tummo
  9. tummock
  10. tummocks
  11. tummy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tummler (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.

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Cite this entry: “tummler.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tummler. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.