Tullian 
Tullian (tul'i-an), (i. [< L. Tulliitnus, of or per- 
taining to the gens Tullius, or to one of that 
gens, < Tullius, Tullius : see del] Of, pertain- 
ing to, or resembling Tally, or Marcus Tullius 
Cicero ; Ciceronian. 
tullibee (tul'i-be), . [Amer. Ind. (?).] The 
mongrel whitefish, Coregimiis tullibee, of the 
Great Lakes. 
Tully limestone. [< Tully, a town in Onondaga 
county, New York.] A thin and not very per- 
sistent bed of limestone, lying between the 
Genesee shale and the Hamilton beds, divisions 
of the Devonian as developed in western New 
York. 
Tully's powder. See powder. 
tulwar (tul'war), ii. [Also ttilwaur and erro- 
nebusly thulwar; <Hind. tulwar, tan<w,lateSkt. 
taravari, a saber.] A saber carried by the peo- 
ple of northern India, as the Sikhs. 
The lance is the favorite weapon of the Indian cavalry- 
soldier, although he can also make very deadly use of his 
tulwar (sword), which, kept in a wooden scabbard, has an 
edge so sharp that it cuts all it touches. 
Sir Garnet Wolsdey, N. A. Rev., CXXVII. 155. 
tulyt, a. and n. [Early mod. E. also tewly ; (. 
ME. title; origin obscure.] A kind of red or 
scarlet color. 
A mantel whit so melk, 
The broider is of tuli selk. 
Beves of Hamtoun, p. 47. (Halliwell.') 
A skane of tewly silk. Skelton, Garland of Laurell. 
For to make bokeram tuly or tidy thread, ... a manner 
of red colour, as it were of crop madder. 
Sloane MS. 73, f. 214. (Halliwett.) 
turn 1 ! (turn), v. t. [Origin obscure.] To card 
(wool) for the first time ; according to Ray, to 
mix wool of divers colors. Hattiwell. 
After your wool! is oyl'd and anointed thus, you shall 
then turn it, you shall put it forth as you did before when 
you mixed it, and card it over again upon your stock 
cards ; and then those cardings which you strike off are 
called tummings, which you shall lay by till it come to a 
spinning. 
Markham, English House- Wife (1675), p. 126. (Halliwell.) 
turn 2 (turn). A vocable imitating the vibration 
of a musical string: generally repeated, tum, 
tum. Compare tom-tom. 
Since the day of the turn, turn, tum of the plantation 
banjo . . . there has been a wonderful improvement in 
construction. Musical Record, No. 328, p. 26. 
tumbt, v. i. [< ME. tumbeu, tomben, < AS. tum- 
bian, tumble, dance, = OHG. ttimon, MHG. 
tumen, turn round, = Icel. tumba, tumble (< 
AS. ?) ; cf. OP. tomber, tumber, turner, F. tomber, 
dial, turner = Pr. tombar, tumbar = Sp. tumbar 
= Pg. tombar = Olt. *tombare, tomare, It. dim. 
tombolare, fall, tumble. The relation of the 
Teut. to the Rom. forms is uncertain. Cf. tum- 
ble.'] To tumble; jump; dance. Trevisa, tr. 
of Higden's Polychronicon, iv. 365; Verstegan, 
Restitution (1628), p. 234. 
tumbak, n. Same as tombac. 
tumbeki (tb'm'bek-i), n. [Turk. : see tobacco.'] 
A kind of tobacco exported from Persia. Also 
written toumbeM. 
tumbestert (tum'bes-ter), n. [ME. also tombes- 
ter, tombestere, tymbester, tymbestere, timbestere ; 
< tumb + -ster.'] A female tumbler or dancer. 
As the professional dancers of medieval times were 
usually also tumblers or acrobats, the words for dance 
and tumble were commonly used as synonymous. (Com- 
pare hop, dance, hopster, a female dancer, Latin saltator, 
saltatrix, a dancer, literally 'leaper.') The daughter of 
Herodias, who danced before Herod, is often pictured 
in medieval art as tumbling, walking on her hands, or 
standing on her head. Compare tumble, 5. 
Herodias dougter, that was a tumbestere, and tumblede 
byfore him [Herod] and other grete lordes of that contre, 
he grantede to seve hure whatevere he wolde bydde. 
MS. Hart. 1701, f. 8. (BalliweU.) 
And ryght anon than comen fambesteres 
Fetys and smale, . . . 
Whiche ben the verray deueles offlceres 
To kindle and blowe the fyr of [lecherye]. 
Chaucer, Pardoner's Tale, 1. 15. 
[In this passage the word is the same as the above, but it 
is an erroneous translation of the Old French tymberesse a 
female player on the tambour (tymbre).] 
tumble (tum'bl), v.; pret. and pp. tumbled, ppr. 
tumbling. [E. dial, also tummle; < ME. tumblen, 
tomblen, tumlen = MD. tumelen, tummelen, tom- 
melen, D. tuimelen = MLG. tumelen = OHG. 
tumilon, MHG. tumeln, tumeln, G. taumeln, tum- 
meln = Sw. tumla = Dan. tumle, tumble, stag- 
ger, wallow; freq. of ME. tumben, tomben, < AS. 
tumbian = OHG. tiimdn, MHG. tumen = Icel. 
tumba, dance: see tumb.'] I. intrans. 1. To roll 
about by turning one way and another; toss; 
pitch about ; wallow : as, he tumbles and tosses 
from pain ; the tumbling sea. 
Hedge-hogs which 
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way. 
Shak., Tempest, ii. 2. 11. 
6526 
Man. I'll write to her to-morrow. 
Bird. To-morrow! she'll not sleep, then, but tumble; an' 
if she might have it to-night, it would better please her. 
Deleter and Webster, Westward Ho, ii. 2. 
Just at this time a shoal of jolly porpoises came rolling 
and tumbling by, turning up their sleek sides to the sun. 
Irving, Knickerbocker, p. 112. 
2. To lose footing or support and fall to the 
ground; come down suddenly and violently; be 
precipitated : as, to tumble from a scaffold. 
He tit ouer his hors tayl tomMed ded to therthe. 
William of Palerne (E. E. T. 8.), 1. 3866. 
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower, 
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff. 
Tennyson, Geraint. 
In making the ascent of some of these precipitous moun- 
tain sides, now and then a mule would lose its footing and 
go tumbling and rolling many feet down. 
The Century, XLI. 773. 
3. To move or go in a rough, careless, or head- 
long manner. 
They [Hottentots] have no Beds to lie on, but tumble 
down at night round the fire. Dampier, Voyages, I. 539. 
We stood or sat in a group, . . . out of the way of the 
men when they should come tumbling aft to make sail or 
haul upon the ropes. W. C. Mussell, A Strange Voyage, v. 
4. To play mountebank tricks by various 
springs, balancings, posturings, and contortions 
of the body. 
You daunce worse than you tumble. Palsgrave, p. 147. 
5f. To dance. 
The dougtir of Herodias daunside [ether tumblide, 
margin] in the myddil, and pleside Heroude. 
Wydtf, Mat xlv. 6. 
Hyt telleth that Eroud [Herod] swore 
To here that tumbled yn the flora. 
MS. Harl. 1701, f. 19. (Halliwell.) 
6. To fall rapidly, as prices : as, fancy stocks 
have tumbled. [Commercial slang.] TO tum- 
ble home. Same as to tumble in (a). To tumble in. 
(a) Said of a ship's sides when they incline in above the 
extreme breadth. (6) To turn in ; go to bed. To tumble 
to, to recognize or understand ; be up to : as, to tumble to 
another's scheme or game ; also, to go at (work and the 
like) vigorously. [Slang.] 
The high words in a tragedy we call jaw-breakers, and 
say we can't tumble to that barrikin. 
Mayhem, London Labour and London Poor, I. 16. 
To tumble up. (a) To get out of bed ; get up. [Slang.] 
Mr. Bailey . . . opened the coach door, let down the 
steps, and, giving Jonas a shake, cried, " We've got home, 
my flower ! Tumble up then ! " 
Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xxviii. 
(b) Naut., to come up hastily and in a scrambling way 
through the hatchway on a ship's deck, as a sailor or a 
number of sailors together : as, the starboard watch tum- 
bled up. 
II. trans. 1 . To turn over ; toss about as for 
examination or search ; revolve in one's mind : 
usually with over. 
Tumbling it over and over in his thoughts, ... he lost 
all patience. Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII., p. 95. 
They tumbled all their little Quivers o'er 
To chuse propitious Shafts. 
Prior, Henry and Emmi. 
2. To disorder; rumple: as, to tumble bed- 
clothes. 
She had her bonnet in her hand (a bruised muslin one, 
with tumbled satin strings). 
E. S. Sheppard, Charles Auchester, 1. 11. 
3. To throw by chance or with violence ; fling; 
pitch. 
With it a blow that laid him full low, 
And tumbl'd him into the brook. 
Mobin Hood and Little John (Child's Ballads, V. 219). 
A girl bare-footed brings and tumbles 
Down on the pavement green-flesh melons. 
Browning, De Gnstibus. 
4. To bring down ; overturn or overthrow ; 
cast to the ground ; fling headlong. 
Jerusalem hathe often tyme ben destroyed, and the 
Walles abated and beten doun and tombled in to the Vale. 
Mandeville, Travels, p. 95. 
And wilt thou still be hammering treachery, 
To tumble down thy husband and thyself 
From top of honour to disgrace's feet ? 
Shak., 2 Hen. VI., i. 2. 48. 
This ability to tumble a hare at full speed with the shot- 
gun is no mean accomplishment. 
Sportsman's Gazetteer, p. 95. 
5. To polish by revolution in a tumbling-box. 
Small castings can be tumbled and thus deprived of 
much of their adhering scale and sand. 
Wahl t Galvanoplastic Manipulations, p. 529. 
To tumble itt, in carp., to flt, as a piece of timber, into 
other work. Tumbled up and down, agitated; per- 
plexed. 
They were greatly tumbled up and down in their minds, 
and knew not what to do. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, ii. 
tumble (tum'bl), n. [< tumble, *>.] 1. A fall; 
a rolling or turning over ; a somersault. 
A tumble of heels over head, a feat performed by beg- 
gar-hoys on the roads. 
Landor, Imag. Conv., General Lacy and Cura Merina. 
tumbler 
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble 
Thro' this metritication of Catullus, 
They should speak to me not without a welcome, 
All that chorus of indolent reviewers. 
Tennyson, Experiments, Hendecasyllabics. 
In their [the clowns'] absurd impertinences, in their im- 
possible combinations, in their mistakes and tumbles, in 
their falling over queens and running up against mon- 
archs. J. H. Shorthouse, John Inglesant, xxi. 
2. A state of entanglement or confusion. 
John Fry began again, being heartily glad to do so, that 
his story might get out of the tumble which all our talk 
had made in it. K. D. BlacJtmore, Lorna Doone, xxxi. 
3. Same as tumbling-box To take a tumble to 
one's self, to make introspection ; reflect how one's con- 
duct is viewed by others : usually in the imperative mood. 
[Slang.] 
tumble-bug (tum'bl-bug), n. One of several 
kinds of scarabteoid beetles, or dung-beetles, 
which roll up balls of dung in which their 
Carolina Tumble-hug (Copris rarotftta'l. 
a, larva ; ''. a section of the hollow excrementitious ball in which the 
insect undergoes its transformations. 
eggs are laid, and in which their larvee trans- 
form ; a straddle-bug, or similar large awkward 
scarab. The particular habit noted is characteristic of 
the snbtribe Ateuchini (see Ateuehus) of the laparostict 
Tumble-bug (Canthon lee-vis). Upper figure male, lower female, 
the former pulling and the latter pushing the ball in which are the 
eggs, and which is thus tumbled into a hole in the ground. (About 
natural size.) 
Scarabfeidee. It has been noted from remote antiquity, 
as in the case of the Egyptian tumble-bugs, and has given 
rise to some famous myths and symbols. See also cuts 
under scarab, Scarabseus, Copris, undgalea. [U. S.] 
tumble-car (tum'bl-kar), n. A cart drawn by 
a single horse: probably so named from the 
axle being made fast to the wheels and tura- 
ing round with them. Halliwell. 
tumble-down (tum'bl-doun), a. In a falling 
state ; dilapidated ; decayed ; ruinous. 
A tumble-down old Lutheran church. 
Longfellow, Hyperion, ii. 9. 
A few dirty-looking men assemble at the door of a tum- 
ble-down building standing against the ruined castle. 
E. A. Freeman, Venice, p. 340. 
tumble-dung (tnm'bl-dung), . [< tumble, v., 
+ obj. dung.] A tumble-bng. 
tumble-home (tum'bl-hom). . Naut., the part 
of a ship which inclines inward above the ex- 
treme breadth. [Rare.] 
tumbler (tum'bler), H. [<ME. tumbler, tombeler, 
iumlare (of. AS. tumberc) (= MLG. tumeler) ; < 
tumble + -er 1 .] 1. One who tumbles; one who 
performs by turning somersaults, walking on 
the hands, etc., as a mountebank. 
There is no tumbler 
Buns through his hoop with more dexterity 
Than I about this business. 
Fletcher (and another), Noble Gentleman, ii. 1. 
The tumbler is walking upon his hands. 
Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, p. 288. 
2. [cap.] One of the religious sect known as 
Dunkers. SeeZtoito' 1 . 3. A breed of domestic 
pigeons which perform certain aerial evolutions 
called tumbling, during which they fall through 
the air for a distance before making play with 
their wings. This performance is an exaggeration of the 
sweeping or gyrating flight characteristic of wild pigeons, 
and an approach to it may be shown by any pigeons, when, 
for example, a hawk dashes into a flock. Tumblers have a 
short round head with high forehead and very short beak. 
