Dictionary

jerrycummumble en · VERB

Etymology

* jerry from jerry or Jerry. Similar to jerry-built or "jerry-sneak". Possibly taken from Jerry, a nickname for Germans. * jerrycummumble and its alternative jerrymumble possibly made to rhyme with fumble, rumble, or tumble. * Potentially related to "jerry-cum-fumble". * Its earliest documented usage is 1709, but Green's Dictionary exemplifies frequent usage of the term between 1785 and 1834.

Meanings

1. (UK, slang) To shake, tousle, or tumble about; to jumble, shake, toss, or get into a muddle.
   • When Colonel Ochiltree saw that, Damn my bones V says he, 'get the chariot!' and he put fox and hounds and overseer all in it, Jerrycummumble, and brought 'em home. 1902, Rives, Hallie Erminie, Hearts courageous:
   • You’re free and equal Faeries. Forget your book of laws and knock the old wooly-pate down with a magical jerrycummumble. 1966, Tripp, Ben, The accidental highwayman : being the tale of Kit Bristol, his horse Midnight, a mysterious princess, and sundry magical persons besides:
   • Come, Kalaquinn, out with it. I’m certain it would take more than a pull of Persy’s mulled wine to jerrycummymble the tongue of one of Frysan Wright’s sons. If there’s danger, old Persy should know about it. 2009, James G. Anderson & Mark Sebanc, The Stoneholding:
   • […] not to jerrycummumble him about further. 1985, Freemen, Joy, The last frost fair:
   • […] we were in a big stretch of purely Mongol land, and most of the broken soldiery were keeping farther to the south, making for the Kan-su border. Our neighbors were a hu-la-mao’rh — an expression meaning, more or less, jerrycummumble. The hu-la-mao'rh аге a recognized class among the Kuei-hua caravans. 1929, Lattimore, Owen, “Chapter 5, Lands of Unrest”, in The desert road to turkestan:

Forms

Synonyms

jerrymumble