able whacketsとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

Possibly from able, as in able seaman, and whack.

発音

名詞

able whackets pl (複数形 only)

1. (nautical slang, now historical) Blows on the hand from a knotted or twisted handkerchief, especially given as a punishment to the loser of certain card games. [from 18th c.]
   • 1905, John Masefield, Sea Life in Nelson's Time, IV:

     The chief amusement or game in use in the midshipmen's berth, was ‘able whackets’, a pastime in which cards, blasphemy, and hard knocks were agreeably mingled.

   • 2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin 2015, p.15:

     Instead of the usual sailors' games of cards and ablewhackets, there was the clicking of dice, with games of parcheesi unfolding on chequerboards of rope […].

参照

• Grose, Francis (1788) A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue‎^[1], 2nd edition, page 1
• Farmer, John Stephen (1890) Slang and Its Analogues‎^[2], volume 1, page 6

アナグラム

• abelwhackets